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Pioneers Of The Sky: 3 Books That Take Flight

American aviator Charles Lindbergh poses in front of his monoplane Spirit of St-Louis at Paris-Le Bourget, May 21 1927, after having achieved the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.
AFP/Getty Images

Today, flying is like riding a bus. But it wasn't always that way. Vaulted from the sands of Kitty Hawk and freed from military exigencies by the end of World War I, aviation soared into the 1920s and '30s on a direct course to tomorrow. Here are three flyers who not only helped open the skies, but also brought literary gems back from the cutting edge of progress, from a time when flying was the most exciting thing in the world.

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Gregory Crouch