Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare-The Story of the American Aerospace Industry

Abstract

This panoramic history of the rise of the American aerospace industry traces the careers of the men whose names became synonymous with today's military-industrial complex: Glenn Martin of Martin Marietta, Donald Douglas of McDonnell Douglas, Jack Northrop of Northrop, and Allan and Malcolm Loughead of Lockheed. Weaving together institutional history and individual biography, Wayne Biddle depicts the years of uncertainty after World War I, the bonanza of World War II, and the cut-throat post-war market. Unlike the automobile industry, the aircraft industry could never be sustained by the middle-class consumer economy, and these legendary founders had to depend on the federal government to keep their companies aloft. Biddell tells the thrilling story of obsessed men who, chasing their dreams of flight and success, created the modern aerospace weapons industry.