Reinventing the Propeller: Aeronautical Specialty and the Triumph of the Modern Airplane

An international community of specialists reinvented the propeller during the Aeronautical Revolution, a vibrant period of innovation in North America and Europe from World War I to the end of World War II. They experienced both success and failure as they created competing designs that enabled increasingly sophisticated and 'modern' commercial and military aircraft to climb quicker and cruise faster using less power. Reinventing the Propeller nimbly moves from the minds of these inventors to their drawing boards, workshops, research and development facilities, and factories, and then shows us how their work performed in the air, both commercially and militarily. Reinventing the Propeller documents this story of a forgotten technology to reveal new perspectives on engineering, research and development, design, and the multi-layered social, cultural, financial, commercial, industrial, and military infrastructure of aviation.

Author: Jeremy R. Kinney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 03/24/2017
Pages: 386
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.47lbs
Size: 9.38h x 6.30w x 1.11d
ISBN: 9781107142862

About the Author
Kinney, Jeremy: - Jeremy R. Kinney is a Curator in the Aeronautics Department of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC. Kinney received his PhD in the history of technology in 2003 from Auburn University, Alabama. His research and curatorial focus is aeronautics in the first half of the twentieth century, with a specific emphasis on interwar and World War II military aviation, air racing, and aircraft propulsion technology. His publications include Alaska and the Airplane: A Century of Flight (with Julie Decker, 2013), Airplanes: The Life Story of a Technology (2008), and the award-winning The Wind and Beyond: Journey into the History of Aerodynamics in America (with James R. Hansen, D. Bryan Taylor and J. Lawrence Lee, 2009), essays in various anthologies, and articles in ICON and the Journal of Aircraft.Kinney, Jeremy R.: - Jeremy R. Kinney is a Curator in the Aeronautics Department of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC. Kinney received his PhD in the history of technology in 2003 from Auburn University, Alabama. His research and curatorial focus is aeronautics in the first half of the twentieth century, with a specific emphasis on interwar and World War II military aviation, air racing, and aircraft propulsion technology. His publications include Alaska and the Airplane: A Century of Flight (with Julie Decker, 2013), Airplanes: The Life Story of a Technology (2008), and the award-winning The Wind and Beyond: Journey into the History of Aerodynamics in America (with James R. Hansen, D. Bryan Taylor and J. Lawrence Lee, 2009), essays in various anthologies, and articles in ICON and the Journal of Aircraft.