I also grabbed this volume which describes the early attempts at fixed-wing aviation in the UK from George Cayley onwards. Hoping it's a good read:
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I picked this one up last month at the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust. Just started reading it and, so far, I have to say it's an outstanding book. If you're looking for a book that's heavily footnoted, then this isn't for you. Conversely, if you're looking for a highly readable account of some historic pioneers of flight in the UK, then I can't recommend it highly enough.
The first chapter covers Eilmer, the "flying monk", who designed his own man-carrying glider and launched himself from a church tower above the town of Malmesbury in the year 1010...and flew for over a furlong. Other chapters cover more well-known individuals, like George Cayley, Percy Pilcher, and, of course, Samuel Cody.
One new name to me was Francis Wenham who invented the world's first wind tunnel in 1870. His paper "Aerial Locomotion", presented to the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1866, proposed a biplane configuration with the planes joined by struts, with turning achieved by generating more lift on one side of the aircraft than the other. There's strong indication that Wenham's work strongly influenced the Wright brothers.
fun
