Oakland Aviation

by Ronald T. Reuther, William T. Larkins

Overview

From hot-air balloons to jets, no other place has had a more diverse and significant aviation history than the city of Oakland. Starting in the mid-1850s with balloons, the city has seen the development of many aircraft innovations, including gliders, the first powered dirigible in North America, some of the first powered airplanes, and even early flying boats. Oakland witnessed the advent of stunt flying, the first transpacific flights, and the Dole Race, as well as many early commercial aviation operations, and a host of other groundbreaking advancements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738556000
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	11/10/2008
Series:	Images of Aviation
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,111,406
Product dimensions:	9.22(w) x 6.46(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

Author Lt. Col. Ronald T. Reuther is a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and U.S. Army aviator and founder of the Western Aerospace Museum at Oakland Airport. He is the recipient of several outstanding awards for accomplishments in aviation and also coauthored with William T. Larkins Arcadia's San Francisco Bay Area Aviation. Larkins is an internationally known aviation photographer, historian, and author of eight books on aviation. He is cofounder of the American Aviation Historical Society and the recipient of several major awards for his contributions to aviation photography and history. The authors have culled their own collections, the archives of the Western Aerospace Museum, and other local archives for images and information on Oakland's illustrious aviation past.

Editorial Reviews

Title: LaGuardia and Oakland Aviation

Author: Staff Writer

Publisher: Airways Magazine

Date: March 2009



LAGUARDIA AIRPORT

Joshua Stoff



OAKLAND AVIATION

Ronald T Reuther & William T Larkins



Arcadia Publishing



Each 128pp; 200 b&wphotos; paperbound

($19.99 & $21.99, respectively)



Two noteworthy additions for Airways readers to Arcadia's 'Images of Aviation' series of photographic histories are devoted to two important commercial airports: New York,LaGuardia; and Oakland, California.



LaGuardia (Airways, February 2008 & October 2005), known originally as New York Municipal Airport, needs little introduction, and the photo coverage captures the Douglas DC-3 years, the romantic era of the flying boats (Airways, August 2007 & May 1999), and the postwar propliner decade, although only a handful of pages are given over to the last 40 years. As many of the photos came from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) archives, destroyed on September 11, 2001, this alone is good reason to add this title to a library.



Well-known aviation historian and photographer Bill Larkins has contributed his local knowledge and immense photo archive to produce a first-rate history of Oakland (OAK), which began its association with aviation in the 1850s with hot-air balloons. While OAK has been a traditional home to US 'non-skeds', and these are well represented in the choice of photos, there is much more to the story, including trans-Pacific flights, air racing, and the Naval Air Reserve. Co-authored by the late Ron Reuther, founder of the Western Aerospace Museum (at OAK), little of the airport's glorious past has been overlooked.

From the Publisher