The Winged Gospel reconstructs America's first era of manned flight and brings back to life the famous and lesser-known aviators who became the nation's heroes: Charles Lindbergh, whose achievement was a great event of the 20s... Amelia Eahrhardt, one of the many women aces... Calbraith Rogers, who made the first transcontinental flight, surviving a dozen crashes, a broken arm and collarbone, and a score of wounds caused by the metal fragments of an exploded engine... And many others. The book provides a vivid picture of America in the first half of the century-its aspirations and concerns-as expressed in the exuberant and often utopian response to a major new technology.

I have been infatuated with airplanes ever since I first laid eyes on one when I was about six years old. Love came later when I got a bit older. I first flew when Dad, who was with the Ford Motor Company, was sent to Paris after WWII. In 1949 my mother, brother and I flew on a TWA Lockheed Constellation, the "Star of Indiana" from Detroit to join him in Paris. All the relatives and friends came out to see us off. It was an event! That is the way flying was in those days. There was a romance about it. Winging one's way across vast expanses of land and water to a destination far away in the comfort of a speeding airliner was an adventure in itself.

Our return from Europe was aboard the Ile de France sailing from Le Havre to New York. It was a rough winter crossing; not as much fun as the flight over. From New York to Detroit we again took to the air, this time aboard an American Airlines DC-3. Right after takeoff the right engine started backfiring and otherwise misbehaving. The pilots made a quick return to LaGuardia. It was old hat for them I am sure, but exciting for us. Another airplane was brought out and off we went bound for home. Flight had captured my imagination and imbued in my psyche an unrelenting quest for fulfillment. I was hooked! In reading The Winged Gospel, I find that so have been many others have been as well.

Joseph J. Corn's book, The Winged Gospel, takes a unique look at the history of manned flight. For centuries heavier than air flight was an impossibility Then on December 17, 1903 the Wright brothers succeeded. Despite their achievement they chose not to immediately publicize their accomplishment. Thus, when people finally became aware that man had successfully flown, they didn't believe it. Too many others had failed in the quest. People had to see it for themselves. Not until the brothers embarked on the aviation circuit did large numbers of people witness the miracle of man departing the earth into the realm of the birds and, as some thought, the heavens. Seeing is believing and thousands came to believe in the miracle.

The possibility of leaving mother earth and experiencing the freedom of flight infused people with a new sense of "airmindedness". Much was expected from airplanes and aviators. Aviation was the future. It seemed to offer so much. Could it even be mankind's salvation?. "Aviation enthusiasts tended to view flight as a `holy cause,' one requiring not only total devotion but also dedicated prosyletizing [sic] or evangelizing." (52) This religious overtone, the "Winged Gospel" and the "romance with aviation," according to Joseph Corn lasted for the first half of the century of flight. It is this early love affair, the airmindedness, that Corn describes. The tone of his text is light hearted and the religious overtones are not meant to be taken totally seriously. Yet it is a serious study and should be accepted as such. By 1950 however the harsh reality of the airplane's usage in war had burst the bubble and enthusiast's idealized hope and aspirations for flight had waned.

In his description, Corn ably blends the various notions of flight as a romance, of being a secular religion, or a technological marvel into a concise history of America's infatuation with aviation following the Wright Brothers' achievement. It is interesting and exemplifies the concept of "technological utopianism." Some inventions are viewed as able to solve all the world's problems and even personal ones. The reality however proves to be much different, though I think, in this case, the romance survives in a less dramatic fashion than it did early on.

In the 1800s technological "utopianism," which offered an exaggerated promise of technology, coalesced in America with evangelical Protestantism. "The combination of an optimistic, this-worldly religion with the industrial revolution encouraged many to view secular developments as evidence of religious progress." (47) Throughout the course of history flight was only a dream with overtones of divinity. The heavens "were a place of spiritual promise." (49) Once man flew, the act of flight was given the adoration of a worshiping congregation. Pilot's, both men and women, were much admired.

If you ever wondered at the reasons for America's infatuation with aviation, Corn's book is the answer. It is a scholarly account of how and why people bestowed their aspirations, dreams, and hopes on a new technology that held so much promise for the future. At last man could transit the heavens with speed and elan! That people got carried away is an understatement. In keeping the faith, zany rituals were performed by the airminded. An "air minded cow" (51) was milked while aloft over St. Louis and the milk dropped by parachute. Wedding vows taken while airborne were so common that "only the fact that the groom was also the pilot, handling the plane with one hand as he slipped the wedding ring on his bride's finger with the other, made the ceremony newsworthy." (56) And a woman gave birth to a baby girl that the proud parents named "Aerogene." (56) The wackiest prediction however goes to Alfred W. Lawson who by the year 3000AD:

"...posited the emergence of a "superhuman" among the pilots who spent a great deal of time in the upper atmosphere. This superhuman would "live in the upper stratas of the atmosphere and never come down to earth at all." Indeed, he would be incapable of descending beneath a certain altitude, having been "reconstructed physically an anatomically by long sojourning in the upper air." This creature, however, was but an intermediate form along the evolutionary flightway to what Lawson termed "Alti-man," one of "two distinct types of human beings" that would appear "prior to the year 10,000A.D." Alti-man would "be born and live his whole life in the heavens, while "at the bottom of the atmospheric sea like a crab or an oyster " would exist "ground man," presumably the descendents of those contemporaries of Lawson's who failed to accept the aviation gospel."(41)

Thinking of flight as a cure for mankind`s ills, is not unique in our history. Corn says, "we now know that the telegraph, radio, x-ray machine, atomic reactors, and other technologies were in their times also widely hailed as panaceas, capable of solving the era`s most pressing problems." (xi)

Not all predictions were so far fetched. The idea of an airplane in every garage had a higher potential for fulfillment, but to this day remains impractical. In 1926 Henry Ford actually built and flew a "Ford flying flivver" but he lost interest when a crash killed the pilot, his friend Harry Brooks. Several air-car machines have been designed and successfully flown, but "the public, encouraged for decades to think that personal planes were just around the corner, had been disappointed once to often and now viewed the prospect of owning a plane or helicopter as improbable, if not utopian."(111)

People had great hopes for the airplane. It seemed it would supplant the automobile as a means of transportation in daily life. This never happened. The cost of an airplane and the training required to operate it precluded the dream from materializing to this date any way. Perhaps the dream was too narrowly conceived. It envisioned use of the airplane in daily life around town commuting similar to with an automobile. But, the airplane today permits speedy and egalitarian travel between distant locations. There is hardly a place on earth that cannot be reached by air travel. And when you arrive you will likely encounter people from all over the world visiting there or conducting business. In looking to the future people's imagination is founded on what exists at the time. No one foresaw the ubiquity of commercial air travel as it materialized. However equipment, training and operational costs are too high for the average consumer to bear individually. But airline fares are reasonable enough for just about anyone to fly today. In the process of creating mass consumerism though, any romance in airline travel has been lost. Flying is not fun like it used to be and is something only to be endured for getting somewhere.

Corn's book describes the dreams of air minded people. The difference today is that the people are more realistic. Airplanes still attract a following of young and old enthusiasts. Air shows are a staple of summer activity around the country. The military services support aerial demonstration teams and static displays allow visitors to inspect new and old airplanes up close. There is always a festive atmosphere and usually a few notable aviators signing autographs or selling books. What is missing from earlier times is a sense of messianic fervor the religious evangelism that Corn speaks of. The Winged Gospel has been tarnished by the realities of flight: the costs, the airplane as a war machine, and its impracticality for the common man. Not withstanding that, I would suggest that the romance continues, just not to the degree as before. There remains a huge attraction of people for flight.

I have one final caution for the reader. In Corn's book there are three levels on which rest his interpretation of America`s acceptance of manned flight. First of all there is the technological "utopianism" theory. To the original1983 publication, in the 2001 edition Corn has written an updated epilogue. The first edition did not anticipate the computer revolution and Corn thought technological "utopianism" was in decline. Not so. Corn notes that "in the eyes of computer enthusiasts, there is almost no human problem for which networked PCs are not a panacea." (153) Second of all, in explaining secular religion in the Winged Gospel. Corn writes with a tongue-in-cheek style suitable for describing the far fetched ideas of people hoping for the salvation of mankind. Finally, and what I think this is the most enduring legacy of the age of flight that Corn describes, is America's romance with aviation. It still can be found, though not like before. All you have to do is go to an air show and witness the turn out to realize that there is still a love affair going on with aviation!

I may see you there.