Flying on Fabric

Since 1943, the U.S. Navy publication Naval Aviation News has carried great stories, pictures, and art about the Navy's pioneering first pilots, airplanes, and aircraft carriers. Retired Captain B. K. Bryans has compiled these public domain works into Flying on Fabric. Flying on Fabric contains 124 true stories of those glory days, including several written by Harold "Kiddy" Karr, who flew combat with the French in WW I and became the Navy's first enlisted pilot. And there are the legends: Glenn Curtiss and Eugene Ely kick-starting it all, "Spuds" Ellyson and "Al" Cunningham pushing the boundaries, and of course, Ken Whiting, a true pioneer of naval aviation. Retired Rear Admiral J.R. Tate tells of his misadventure with an early parachute and of Admiral "Bull" Halsey-the only senior officer of the time to earn Navy wings by flying the entire syllabus. This is history presented as a set of remarkable, but true, stories of and by the men who learned to fly and fight on fabric-covered wings.