Читать книгу The Rise of the Flying Machine - Hugo Byttebier - Страница 4

HUGO T. BYTTEBIER

(4th April 1924, Wulvergem, Belgium –

25th March 2004, Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina).

As an adolescent he developed a passion for the history of aviation. He worked tirelessly during more than 30 years to give us this great and complete historical work. It required the reading and research of more than 165 historical books, and countless magazines, newspapers, encyclopaedias and exhibition pamphlets, many of them original editions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that are still kept in his vast and valuable library.

In 1972, his book The Curtiss D-12 Aero Engine, a study of the first successful engine built in aluminium block between the two world wars and the precursor of many engine designs, was published in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s “Annals of Flight” series.

He contributed with other writers to various aviation magazines, and donated generously to the Circle of Aeronautical Writers in Argentina.

He died shortly after finishing this work, so his family and many of his friends wanted to publish it for its historical value, as a detailed explanation of how the pioneers of powered and manned flight developed the inherently stable aircraft we know today.

The publication of this book is a posthumous tribute from all who knew him to Hugo and his historical rigour.