Review by Booklist Review
Born in 1889 to a hardworking family, Harry Hawker possessed an affinity for gadgets and mechanical work. He was fascinated by the nascent aviation industry but felt confined at home in Australia. He moved to England and met kindred spirit Tom Sopwith. England became a hive of innovation, with Hawker, Sopwith, and other prospective aviators working on planes and competing to break records for the longest time aloft. While some viewed the potential of air travel as benevolent, newsmen such as Alfred Harmsworth saw aircraft as a weapon of war--a suspicion confirmed as WWI dawned, and the world witnessed the first instance of aerial combat. With the war's end, that competitive flying spirit returned, and pilots raced to make history by being the first to traverse the Atlantic Ocean. The Big Hop is a fascinating look at the people who risked everything to achieve immortality through flight. Rooney (About Time, 2021) offers an altogether informative and entertaining history that chronicles some of the lesser-known personalities who made significant contributions to the field of aviation.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this lively account, historian Rooney (About Time) explains that aeronautic technology made major leaps forward during WWI, propelling the nascent industry into the forefront of the postwar public's imagination. Nearly a decade before Charles Lindbergh's solo flight, this taste for aerial adventure reached a little-remembered crescendo with the race to become the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic. In 1919, three teams of aviators took off from Newfoundland in an attempt to conquer the "Big Hop." Newspapers around the world reported on the contest, fueled by a £10,000 prize (nearly $400,000 today) offered by London's Daily Mail. Anxious for publicity, British aviation companies pushed pilots and navigators to enter the race, despite the dangers of their still rickety products. In open cockpit biplanes, the teams flew more than 2,000 miles through blinding fog, rain, snow, and treacherous winds. Only one made it: the first to embark, a converted Vickers Vimy bomber flown by Jack Alcock and Ted Brown. The second team ditched in the ocean halfway across; the third crashed--twice--during takeoffs; a fourth never left, having learned of the arrival of Alcock and Brown--who themselves nearly died during an out-of-control 5,000-ft. descent that they pulled out of a mere 50 feet above the water. Rendered in Rooney's graceful prose, this makes for a breathtaking tale of bravery, perseverance, and fortune. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The first air crossing from North America to Europe was an achievement to remember. "A nonstop flight across the Atlantic might be routine to us," writes Rooney, a British author. "But it is only possible because of those who went first." And the first were Britain's John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who made the crossing in 1919 in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber. The journey was, in fact, part of a race sponsored by a British newspaper, although it wasn't much of a contest. Four aircrews assembled in Newfoundland, aiming to reach Ireland, but two of them didn't get off the ground. Another made it halfway before being forced down by storms and engine failure (the pilots were rescued by a passing ship). Rooney emphasizes the fragility of the planes, which were held together with wire and wood. (The author knows the planes well: In his 20s, he worked as a guide at the London Science Museum, where the Vimy is on display.) Unreliable equipment and terrible weather were serious impediments for Alcock and Brown. They were experienced airmen--both piloted planes during World War I--but there were, according to their later accounts, many times when they didn't think they would make it. After 16 hours in an open cockpit, they reached Ireland, accidentally landing in a bog on an early Sunday morning in June. The impact snapped the aircraft's fuel lines, filling the cockpit with petrol. The airmen hurriedly climbed out of their plane. "What do you think of that for fancy navigating?" Brown asked Alcock. "Very good," Alcock replied. And the men shook hands. Rooney pieces the story together from articles and memoirs, noting that the accomplishment was overshadowed by Charles Lindbergh's solo crossing eight years later. Anyone with an interest in the formative era of aviation will thrill to this account. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
