Airplanes, Women, and Song

by Sergievsky, Boris; Forsyth, Allan; Hochschild, Adam

• ISBN13: 9781574886382
• ISBN10: 157488638X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc

Summary

Fills an important niche in the literature of early aviation in tsarist Russia Contains thirty-six sidebars by those who knew Sergievsky personally Features several rare photographs from private collections of life on the eastern front during World War I Boris Sergievsky was one of the most colorful early aviators, living a life of extraordinary adventure. He made his first flight less than ten years after the Wright brothers made theirs; he made his last only four years before the first Concorde took off. Born in Russia, Sergievsky learned to fly in 1912. During the next decade. he became a much-decorated fighter pilot, battling the Austro-Hungarians in World War I and later the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. After coming to America in 1923, he joined Igor Sikorsky's airplane company and became its chief test pilot. A true aviation pioneer, he flew across uncharted African and Latin American jungles in the 1930s, tested the flying boats Pan American Airways used to establish its worldwide routes, and flew many of the early helicopters and jets, inclu