THE SPEED SEEKERS

This is a book about aeroplanes and speed - the lure of la vitesse pure, its challenge and mystique - but primarily it is a book about the men who were inspired by speed's insistent call. Although it is a story about men's successes it does not neglect their failures, which were sometimes dramatic, occasionally fatal, but always instructive.

( ... ) The Speed Seekers documents a technological growth, together with its myriad sources, which fostered results in terms of increasing speed unequaled in any similar time span up until the birth of the jet age. During the turbulent inter - war years the world speed record became very much a matter of national prestige and the air races of that period are still remembered with reverence today.

( ... ) With its unique tables of aircraft and engine performance data complementing scrupulously researched text, this extensively illustrated book is a magnificent chronicle of one of aviation's brightest eras.