Interesting, but very dated.

Like all the John McPhee I have read, this was a meandering voyage through I topic I knew nothing about, peopled with odd characters and stories. I enjoyed the strangeness of the world of lighter than air craft and the odd tangents the story took. I did tend ot look track of which slightly bizarre LTA enthusiast was talking about what but I still just let the story take me away.

If you've ever dreamed of a steampunk universe this is the book for you. It tells the story of the attempt to redevelop an airship that combines an airplane and a zeppelin. Also some of the history of the airship, starting with the American Civil war. ( )

Well. That was disappointing. Long and complex discussion and dissection of an experimental aircraft and everyone involved in it (he commented on the Presbyterian ministers, but not the undertakers' sons). It ended in success...and nothing. Yay it worked, now it's tucked away in the corner of a hangar and is at best a tiny footnote in the history of experimental aircraft - no actual use or further development. A real letdown, after I'd slogged through the whole book. I like some of McPhee's stuff, and some of it utterly does not work for me. ( )

I remember when, years ago, long before I retired, a guy came into the library and wanted some really obscure information on Ferris Wheels. I got to talking with him and over the years we became friends. He had some kind of menial job, working at KFC or something, but he was absolutely obsessed with Ferris Wheels and knew just about everything you can imagine about their history and how they work. He was thrilled when we managed to dig up the arcane material he sought.

I’ve always secretly admired people like that. They have a singular, driven purpose and interest that I lack. I’m interested in many, many things, but rarely obsessed with one item alone at that depth, so I’ve had a bazillion hobbies.

I like John McPhee who so engagingly writes about these personalities. We have William Miller, a theology maven, who has sunk all his money and time into the development of a bizarre little craft, neither airship nor airplane; John Kukon, model builder extraodinaire who had won a ridiculous number of model plane speed records, one using a fuel of his own design that was so powerful it broke the world speed record and couldn’t be shut off, the plane flew for six miles; and how Aereon, the company they built, fell apart.

For whatever reason, the obsession with airships resurfaces every few years. Just read Popular Mechanics for a periodic revival of interest as a way to haul huge loads cheaply over undeveloped wilderness. For Drew and Miller, the interest was tinged with religious fervor, but they sacrificed a great deal for their dream.

Wonderful story, laced with history, (the story of Andrew Solomons parallels that in John Toland’s The Great Dirigibles.) McPhee always manages to take something apparently mundane and turn it into a fascinating essay about people and their relationship to the world around them. ( )