A Passion for Flight – New Zealand aviation before the Great War; Volume One – Ideas, first flight attempts and the aeronauts 1868-1909.

184 pages with over 120 illustrations.

Each volume available separately at $35 each. However, another of my auctions also features a three for the price of two offer, ie the three volume set (total 712 pages with over 500 illustrations) for just $70.

Prominent in this first volume is the part played by the aeronauts – men and women. The first to perform here came from overseas on tour and were later followed by local performances by a number of New Zealanders. From Invercargill to Whangarei, they ascended by hot-air- or gas-filled balloon and parachuted from them with varying degrees of success (or injury!). Although theirs was primarily an entertainment that did little to advance the science of aviation, several milestones were achieved, among them New Zealand’s first manned flight, first cross-country journey by air, and height and duration records. These were the infant years of the aviation that we know today. Little was known or understood about the subject then. Nevertheless anything and everything seemed possible to the passionate enthusiast full of naive and unbounded confidence, a fertile imagination and sanguine hopes that were usually rewarded with little more than a heavily depleted bank balance, a crashed machine, or both. It would take a world war before aviation really began to mature. The stories of the aeronauts ups and downs, so to speak, are told here in detail and in proper context for the first time, as are those of the many others, young and old, who took an active interest in flying machines in New Zealand or overseas. Their successes and rewards may have been relatively few but their endeavours and their place in our history deserve to be remembered.