It was September 19^th 1783 and man was about to realize the dream of flight, something that had eluded him since the dawn of man. It was the first hot air balloon to depart the earth with life on board. Those fifteen minutes of flight were hailed as the greatest feat mankind had conquered to date!

Two years later French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard flew over the English Channel. It was a stunning feat of bravery, but more than that, it opened up the sky as a new frontier for mankind. Not long after, the Wright brothers made history and like a freight train barreling down at breakneck speed; flight not only became a reality, but made the entire world accessible for all at speeds hitherto unknown.

It was fodder for fiction writers such as Jules Verne. His novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days” published in 1873, became almost an instant classic. His ability to excite the reader with the danger, beauty and novelty of flight was something readers had never fully envisioned before and gave the reader a view of seeing the earth below them rather than the view above. He was considered by some a “scientific seer” due to his fairly accurate predictions about space flight, helicopters, radar, satellites, cannons, tazers, skyscrapers and gas powered automobiles. Several of his novels were picked up by Hollywood and turned into successful movies.

By the early 1900s, the “pulps” (so called because they were printed on cheap high-acid-content paper) were churning out aviation adventure stories. Of particular interest were the WWII air combat adventures. America was battling its way out of the depression and were eagerly gobbling up stories of dare devil ace pilots, dog fights and daring-do.

The pulp fiction magazines were a perfect outlet for aviation and air adventure stories. Many great writers jump started their careers such as Dashiell Hammett, Ray Chandler, Lester Dent and H.P Lovecraft and many more in a wide variety of genres, contributed literary works that inspired and influenced many up and coming writers.

L. Ron Hubbard, a pioneer of the golden age of pulp fiction was one such writer to influence future writers with his novels, Sabotage in the Sky and The Sky-Crasher. Readers were enthralled by barnstorming dare devils, intrigue, pulse-pounding aerial combat and even romance. These were two of Hubbard’s thirteen air adventure novels published between the 1930s and 40s in pulp magazines such as, Five Novels, War Birds and Top-Notch.  Being a pilot himself and experiences in the Navy, he was able to create realism in his characters, land, air and sea scapes. In writing adventure stories he was quoted as having said: “In writing an adventure story a writer has to know that he is adventuring for a lot of people who cannot. The writer has to take them here and there about the globe and show them excitement and love and realism. As long as that writer is living the part of an adventurer when he is hammering the keys, he is succeeding with his story.”

Mans longing to fly like birds is a freedom we have the opportunity to experience because of the ingenuity of people like the Wright brothers and our favorite writers of air adventures. If you want to experience the excitement and adventure of flight, read a good book! Enjoy!

Written by Lawrence Hale

PHOTO CAPTION: Events in the early history of ballooning; collecting cards from the late 19th century.