Overview

The story of Eugene Ely’s life is the stuff of myth and legend. Much of what has been written about him relies on sensationalized newspaper accounts from an era when early twentieth century reporters unabashedly fabricated stories to increase newspaper circulation. Those accounts portray Ely as a reckless daredevil and are essentially historical fiction. Eugene Ely: Pioneer of Navigation cuts through the sensationalism by relying on primary sources and photographic records and triangulating multiple sources to arrive at an honest portrait of the man and his legacy. The result is the story of a quiet, self-effacing Iowan who did extraordinary things. Ely’s measured approach and calculated demonstrations of the potential of military aviation ultimately pointed the way to today’s modern aircraft carriers, over a century later.

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9781682478370

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"Naval Aviation owes a lasting debt to Eugene Ely and his employer, Glenn Curtiss. And history owes a debt to John Zobel, LaVerne Woods, and Robert Coolbaugh et al for their tremendous biography of the first airman to take off from and land aboard a ship.  Pioneer of Naval Aviation is the product of meticulous research that unravels more than a century of myths and mysteries in providing the definitive biography of Eugene Ely amid his era."" — Barrett Tillman , author of On Wave and Wing: The 100-Year Quest to Perfect the Aircraft Carrier “One of naval aviation’s earliest pioneers, Eugene B. Ely is best known for making the first shipboard aircraft takeoff and landing. Zobel recognized Ely’s contribution could only be appreciated in the context of aviation's growing pains prior to World War One. Edited by his widow, LaVerne Woods, Zobel developed a two-part story—Ely’s all too-short but hugely impactful aviation career and an in-depth study of his contemporary flying pioneers. Exhaustively researched, well-written, and historically accurate.”— Robert O. Harder , author of The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki"

"Naval Aviation owes a lasting debt to Eugene Ely and his employer, Glenn Curtiss.  And history owes a debt to John Zobel, LaVerne Woods, and Robert Coolbaugh et al for their tremendous biography of the first airman to take off from and land aboard a ship.  Pioneer of Naval Aviation is the product of meticulous research that unravels more than a century of myths and mysteries in providing the definitive biography of Eugene Ely amid his era."" — Barrett Tillman , author of On Wave and Wing: The 100-Year Quest to Perfect the Aircraft Carrier “One of naval aviation’s earliest pioneers, Eugene B. Ely is best known for making the first shipboard aircraft takeoff and landing. Zobel recognized Ely’s contribution could only be appreciated in the context of aviation's growing pains prior to World War One. Edited by his widow, LaVerne Woods, Zobel developed a two-part story—Ely’s all too-short but hugely impactful aviation career and an in-depth study of his contemporary flying pioneers. Exhaustively researched, well-written, and historically accurate.”— Robert O. Harder , author of The Three Musketeers of the Army Air Forces: From Hitler’s Fortress Europa to Hiroshima and Nagasaki"

Author Information

John Hiller Zobel was an author, recovering attorney, and accomplished athlete. John practiced law for twenty years in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer and parent in 2007. His first book, A Slight Change of Plans, published in 1998, was a P.G. Wodehouse-style romantic comedy. He earned a B.A. in English from Harvard College in 1981 and received his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1985. He died unexpectedly on the summit of Aconcagua in Argentina in January 2017.

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