In 1910 the age of aviation was just beginning. There was still a question about which form of flight would win. Dirigibles, balloons, and airplanes were popular with different groups. Gavin Mortimer dramatizes that year as several events took place that would determine primacy.

He focuses first on an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a dirigible, the America. In October, Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman, with a crew of four and a cat, set out to prove the skeptics wrong and sail their airship from Atlantic City to England. Beneath the big dirigible was a fully equipped lifeboat. Beneath that was a new device called the equilibrator, which was to provide ballast (and was to be a source of danger later.) The America cast off successfully, and Mortimer takes the reader to another part of the story.

He introduces Claude Grahame- White, a handsome, daring flyer from England. He was in the States after successful exhibition flights and races in Europe. In addition to charming the women, he was here as a member of the three-man British team to try to win the International Aviation Cup at Belmont Park.

Other flyers in what was a very dangerous sport profiled in Closing Icarus are Arch Hoxey, Walter Brookins, and John Moisant. Not exactly household names now, they were famous heroes at the time. Fans came to see the races, to see the new planes, and perhaps hoped to see accidents. (They were seldom disappointed.) Because Mortimer gives pictures (in words as well as photos) of these men (only two women had even been up in planes at this point), the reader cares about who wins the contests.

Meanwhile, the Fifth International Balloon Cup Race was proceeding. “There were many ways to die in a balloon. . . . One could drown; one might be struck by lightning; one could explode in a ball of fire.” Having aroused our interest, Mortimer introduces his next set of characters, most notably Augustus Post and Alan Hawley, two American entrants. Others in the race included Sam Perkins and Hans Gericke and Alfred LeBlanc and Walter de Mumm. Beginning in St. Louis, the balloons would move over the Great Lakes -- if they got that far -- and troubles soon arose.

The reader moves breathlessly among these adventures, never sure who will win or even survive. Wilbur and Orville Wright are there, of course, as are the navy department and New York society. The America struggles over the Atlantic, the balloonists struggle in the Canadian wilderness, and the airmen compete with each other and the wind.

Chasing Icarus is available at the Mary Willis Library.