Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by Guillaume de Syon Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire. By David T. Courtwright. Centennial of Flight Series. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Pp. 284. $24.95. Seeking to apply the frontier metaphor to the history of American aviation, David Courtwright offers an interesting, insightful, funny, and yet flawed take on this canvas of flight. Over the course of twelve chapters forming three distinct parts, he teases out many of the separate dimensions of the frontier, suggesting how the element of adventure has not just given way to routine, but has also become an essential part of American identity and polity. Courtwright's theoretical premise is sound and well explained. Nonspecialists in American history will appreciate the analogies to the night as frontier and the emphasis on the social process that the author specializes in. Indeed, while pioneers are found in both land and air cases, the social makeup of the participants differs markedly. Pioneers in air travel may have been adventurers like their land counterparts, but they usually enjoyed some measure of wealth. And it was the rich who followed in their footsteps, not the poor, who had to await 1970s deregulation to join the fray. Courtwright is at his best when discussing the cultural shift in commercial aviation through the prisms of pilots, flight attendants, and passengers. Although he places the advent of mass air travel somewhat early in the 1950s and 1960s, he nonetheless paints a convincing image of how flight was sold though the combination of contradictory notions of adventurous speed and safe routine. Such sky adventures also brought about new questions in how to manage the new "empire" (a term whose definition evolves in time, but also throughout the book). In this optic, Courtwright's use of Charles Lindbergh as the poster child for certainty and doubt in the realm of America's relationship to technology works well, and his ability to refresh the story of the fallen hero succeeds remarkably. It likely is the best case for American exceptionalism also, which helps balance less convincing evidence. Courtwright constantly stresses the uniqueness of the American flying experience. Even though this view is somewhat accurate, he seemingly overlooks evidence that does not fit the thesis. For example, he notes that American aircraft were far better than their European counterparts by the [End Page 864] 1930s as a result of geographical imperative. Such monocausal explanation not only feeds the old myth of necessity as mother of invention, but it also overlooks European attempts to remain relevant to their colonial designs. Other factors, especially airline competition, a different outlook on air subsidies, and a stable political scene, played a far greater role than challenging mountaintops in explaining the diverging directions of American and European aviation; Courtwright covers several of these elements, but never comparatively. Thus, he overlooks the fact that while the United States may have indeed led world aviation (and there is plenty of material on unique American contributions to aviation that does not require looking to other nations), this did not happen in a vacuum. As Courtwright retells the story, the frontier became planetary rather than continental. Yet he often neglects what is beyond the oceans. Even mentions of the winglets and fly-by-wire controls installed on commercial aircraft starting in the 1980s ignore that such American ideas first found favor with European manufacturers before manufacturers in the United States shed their conservative approach to aircraft design. More of a comparative glance, if only in passing, would have helped avoid an unfortunate generalization; in fact, it would have strengthened the author's case regarding American influence overseas. Courtwright also takes on the frontier in modern military aviation and in space. The space commentary itself is lucid and welcome, though it does not add much new to the debate on our presence in space. But it also widens his coverage to a degree where Courtwright opens himself up to serious challenge. First, his discussion of aerial bombing...