Pioneers in Aviation

The birth of American aviation. From the Wright Brothers’ earliest flights, through the turbulent era of the 1920s, culminating with the Great Depression.  The captains of the aviation industry who started as young men as they designed and constructed planes for America’s effort in World War I.

The 1930s & '40s, as the clouds of war, gather over Europe. With all of Europe a German stronghold by the summer of 1940 and Britain under attack, President Roosevelt calls on the captains of his aviation industry — declaring that America must now become “the Arsenal of Democracy.”

The Cold War era of the 1950s & '60s, as post-war America finds itself locked in an ideological struggle with the Soviet Union. In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik suddenly shifts the Cold War battlefield to space and heralds the decade-long Race to the Moon.