Brace for Impact

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Peter Pigott. Brace for Impact

Cover

Also by Peter Pigott

Dedication

Table of Contents

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

NOTES

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Отрывок из книги

Air Canada: The History (2014)

From Far and Wide: A History of Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty (2011)

.....

Given the very public deaths of aviators (editors knew that blaring headlines like “Air Tragedy” sold newspapers), it was little wonder that aviators were regarded as the latest form of acrobats, closer to trapeze artists than to pilots and working without even a safety net. Until 1927, pilots would be ineligible to purchase life insurance, a cause of concern to their widows, and the U.S. government census classified their occupation as “entertainers.” To be fair, besides the headlined crashes, the insurance industry had no accurate statistics to go on. If the popular aviation song for the era was “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine,” less romantic was doggerel from the period that said it better:

There was an old woman who lived in a hangar,

.....