181: American Aviation: The Growth of the Industry Through the Eyes of Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and Howard Hughes

“If he is lost it will be the most universally regretted single loss we ever had. But that kid ain’t going to fail.”

This is the story of the high-fliers in early twentieth-century American aviation. 

Wright brothers Orville and Wilbur stunned the nation and the world with their pioneering flight in 1903, and since then, aviation has spread its wings, so to speak. The Wright Brothers and other innovators like Glenn Curtiss are innovating and pushing the limit while the Great War takes aviation to new heights altogether. 

But when the guns fall silent in Europe, the roar of its plane engines doesn’t. Former doughboy pilots and an upcoming generation of postwar aviators have all sorts of uses for these aircraft: crop dusting, photography, high-flying “barnstorming” stunts, and, of course, mail delivery. And as planes get faster and flights get longer; as daring pilots like Charlie “Lucky Lindy” Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and Amelia Earhart refuse to accept anything short of the “sky’s the limit”; as postage and fine-dining passengers take to the skies; the United States will never the be the same.

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