O RIDE THE WIND: Biography of Glenn L. Martin

Glenn Martin, who became head of the Martin Marietta aircraft corporation, was a natural designing genius who built his first plane just four years after the Wright brothers proved the worth of powered, controlled aircraft at Kitty Hawk. When he died in 1955, he had built some of the world's most celebrated planes, including the China Clipper, the B-26, the first all-metal monoplane, and his company was a fiasco; he never got off the ground and wrecked his $2,000 handmade machine. Soon, though, he built another, with his mother's help, was flying over local California pastures. For years it was thought that aviation had no commercial future, but Martin held differently and within a very few years had his own company and the world's record for the longest over-water flight. By World War I he was the nation's leading manufacturer. He became entirely absorbed by his company and had no personal life. One of his greatest contributions to flight was to master mass production techniques. While not inspired, this is a consistently interesting biography.