Houston Aviation


Book Description

As Houston steadily grew in the early 20th century, the commercial and civic elite focused on the community's industrial expansion and economic prosperity. Aviation played a significant role in that aspiration. With the earliest birdmen of the skies offering a suggestion of the economic potential of flight, Houston-area policymakers solicited and welcomed military aviation, first at Ellington Field and later on Galveston Island. As early as the 1920s, the burgeoning Houston energy industry realized the value and utility of aircraft as business tools. Aircraft were uniquely capable of quickly traversing the great distances that separated the oil fields from the centers of commerce and industry, and their use made Houston an epicenter for modern business aviation. Between World War I and World War II, the federal post office subsidized the development of commercial passenger service while the city fathers provided the necessary infrastructure through the funding and establishment of the Houston Municipal Airport. The triptych of business, commercial, and military aviation would come to define Houston's aviation lineage.




Houston, Space City USA


Book Description

On July 20, 1969, humanity paused with attention locked to television and radio broadcasts as the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission dramatically touched down on the dusty face of the moon. The first word from the lunar surface: Houston. Houston, Space City USA is a visual celebration of the city’s historic ties to the US human space program. When President Kennedy declared, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” he did so from the campus of Rice University. More than half a century later, Houston continues to serve as the nerve center of the American human space program. Author and photographer Ray Viator, a longtime Houstonian, has lovingly captured the spirit of a city’s devotion to space exploration from then to now. Using striking photographs of the full moon as a visual motif of Houston’s connection to spaceflight, Viator also weaves together historic images to show how former cow pastures transformed into mission control. Some connections are obvious—the Houston Astros or the Houston Rockets. Others are hidden in plain sight, like the arm patches on the uniform of every Houston police officer that read, “Space City U.S.A.” Viator’s lens captures this and more. Houston, Space City USA not only marks the important milestone of the first lunar landing, but it also helps readers discover and rediscover a city’s constellation of connections to one of humankind’s greatest achievements. The author's proceeds from the sale of this book will benefit Houston Public Media.







FAA Aviation News


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Lady Lucy Houston DBE


Book Description

The life-story of Lady Lucy Houston DBE must surely be one of the most romantic and dramatic epics of the last one hundred and fifty years, yet nowadays she is a woman unknown. She was a renowned beauty with a sharp intelligence, and over the years she would exploit her charismatic charm, first as a teenager to entice a wealthy lover, and subsequently to lead three husbands to the altar.She was an ardent and productive campaigner for womens rights, conducting outstanding works of charity during the Great War, such as providing a convalescent home for nurses returning from the front line. In recognition of these endeavours, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1917. After the death of her third husband, a known misogynist, under mysterious circumstances, she was temporarily certified mad, but his Will was to make her the richest woman in England. During the rest of her eventful and eccentric lifetime, she spent her fortune on a vast number of charitable causes, whilst waging a feisty political campaign against weak British politicians of all parties. As a great admirer of how Mussolini had restored Italys patriotic self-esteem, she championed men like Winston Churchill as the future saviour of her own beloved country. But her greatest legacy arose from her steadfast support for the Royal Air Force, whose finances were being crippled. She funded the 1931 Schneider Trophy Race as well as the Houston-Mount Everest Expedition of 1933. This funding had a crucial bearing on the development of the Merlin engine and the Spitfire aircraft, essentially kick starting the chain of events that would ultimately end in allied victory during the Battle of Britain. She died before the cataclysmic war that she so accurately predicted however, her death being precipitated by an infatuation with Edward, Prince of Wales.In spite of her many eccentricities, the enchanting, infuriating, inspiring and endlessly controversial Lucy Houston deserves to be remembered as a very patriotic lady indeed.







Flying Magazine


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Flying Magazine


Book Description