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BOOK NEWS Although checking in at the In this centennial year of the Wrights’ historic accomplishment come several books marking the occasion and lauding the attempts of some of the many others, before and since the Wrights, whose lofty flight plans didn’t get off the ground. How the Wrights, bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, rose to fame after their Wright Flyer rose into the sky at Kitty Hawk is told in "The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and This coffee-table book by Walt Burton and Owen Findsen features 240 illustrations, including photos of the event taken by the brothers to It chronicles early attempts at The also-rans (who didn’t also fly) get their due in "To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight’’ (The Free Press, $28). Author James Tobin’s tale of the quest to build the first manned, Most prominent among the no-flies was the affluent Samuel Pierpont Langley, who was head of the Smith-sonian Institution and whose experiments were backed by the U.S. War Department. His attempts to achieve liftoff with a powerful engine repeatedly met with defeat. Among other aviation underachievers were telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who was Langley’s friend; and Glenn Curtiss, a motorcyclist who adopted the Wrights’ ideas in an attempt to acquire personal fame and fortune. There was even a measure of Flying flops are the subject of "The Wrong Stuff? Attempts at Flight Scott examines the flawed attempts of those who came before the Wrights and of those who attempted to improve upon the brothers’ success. Among them are the obscure as well as the famous: Leonardo da Vinci, who designed a pair of wings for people to wear; Howard Hughes, whose huge wood seaplane, the "Spruce Goose,’’ made a one-mile flight in 1947 and has since been grounded as a tourist attraction; and even the Wrights, whose 1904 Flyer proved to be misnamed when it crashed within a few feet of takeoff. Included are illustrations of various contraptions that looked as if they’d never get off the ground — and didn’t. Noah Adams retraces the steps — on the ground and in the air — of the Wrights in his book "The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur & Orville Wright’’ (Crown, $22). Adams spoke with descendants of families that helped the brothers Letters, telegrams, diary entries and other documents are cited to help reveal the lives of the brothers and their family. Adams traveled thousands of miles – to Le Mans, France; Dayton; and Kitty Hawk – and interviewed dozens of people to chronicle the brothers’ lives and deeds, and to get to know them as not only accomplished inventors, but as people.
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