To Caress the Air: Augustus Herring and the Dawn of Flight. Book One

Most people accept the view that the Wright brothers invented the airplane. “Not so!” according to American aviation pioneer Augustus Moore Herring. “The aeroplane has a good many daddies.” Herring should know; he was there.

To Caress the Air is a biographical novel based on Herring’s 22-year career in aeronautics. The story takes place in the United States during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries and chronicles Herring’s aeronautical achievements, his ordeals, and his triumph over seve...