I just finished a great book, The Miracle of Flight, by Stephen Dalton.

After an overview and an excellently presented and illustrated chapter on
aerodynamics that any reasonably interested person would enjoy and
appreciate, the author starts with insects, revealing how they fly with
stunning high-speed and stroboscopic color photos of various insects in
illustrative moments of flight. (The Odonata are well represented.) In that
section, he explains and illustrates remarkable findings of the unique
aerodynamic techniques that allow insects to fly when all the "laws of
physics" say they can't.

He then moves on to birds (about a third of the book), with a description
of their unique anatomy and more exceptional, and beautiful, high-speed
photos. He reveals how even birds use the special aerodynamic principles
that allow insects to fly -- I'll give you just a clue; that "whap! whap!
whap!" sound pigeons make when they take off.

He then covers man's attempts at flight -- after animals had been flying
for 350 million years, man started to try in the 1100's, finally
accomplishing the goal in 1903 after centuries of truly weird and deadly
attempts, and consistent failure to truly learn from birds. It took only 66
more years to get to the moon! Throughout the bird and manned flight
sections, we are reminded with illustrations and photos of the special
aerodynamic devices "invented" by braces of aeronautical engineers spending
millions of dollars at places like Boeing -- when those devices were
demonstrated to perfection every day by soaring eagles to anyone smart
enough to just look. There is a final section on modern aircraft, including
a complete study of the special problems of trans- and super-sonic flight.

As a birder I would have found this book irresistible; as a birder and
pilot (now inactive) it is simply indispensable.

180 pages, hard cover, 9-1/4" x 11-1/2", beautifully printed, $40.00 list,
$28.00 at Amazon.com. Not yet on the ABA web site, but you may want to
call them -- I just got it from my distributor.

It's too bad your loved ones don't read Tweeters this holiday season! <G>

Jerry Blinn
Silverdale, WA
<jerry at avisys.net>
Web site: <www.avisys.net>