Electronics in the Evolution of Flight (review)

I do not think that many historians have been asked to review this sort of book recently. Even though a "further reading" list follows most of the nine chapters, there are no citations and no comprehensive bibliography. Can one assume that Albert Helfrick has total control of his subject?

Helfrick's thesis is that electronics make modern flight possible. With each field, he starts in the latter nineteenth century, recounting origins. Next comes a chapter on the parallel development of radio and aircraft technology, but with more about radio receivers and the early design characteristics that made them unsuitable for aircraft (more than fifty pounds of weight, 300-foot antennas). Then he discusses the plethora of radio navigation devices developed and used during World War II; some of them, such as VOR, found a market afterward.

By the time the reader reaches the middle of Electronics in the Evolution of Flight it has become clear that Helfrick will set forth no theory of historical progression in either electronics or aviation, but only chronicle a blizzard of invention. Occasionally an electronic device was light enough, small enough, and sufficiently useful to be incorporated into airplanes. The blizzard becomes more intense in the immediate postwar era and during the so-called space race. Helfrick does not consider many inventions for earthbound navigation, save the brief though accurate passages on global positioning systems.

There are only a few obvious errors, as when Helfrick refers to the A300 as a full-authority fly-by-wire system that was in service by 1972, thereby jumping the gun for Airbus by about a decade. He also dates the beginning of the space race to the success of Vanguard, ignoring what was accomplished with Explorer 1. This book is simply written, and the descriptions of electronic devices used aboard aircraft are clear. Only in the final chapters, which address the burst of innovation precipitated by space exploration and computers, does the reader feel a little shell-shocked. Though it seems confusing to consider fly-by-light and free flight before the establishment of their practicality, overall this is a reasonable attempt to trace the development of electronics in the evolution of flight, per Helfrick's title. The sections suggesting further reading are uneven, and my initial reaction was that these would be useful to beginners only. But, on second thought, errors make these sections problematic even for beginners. This is essentially a brain dump by a man deeply engaged in the field, and it is therefore an interesting read. But on a lot of matters, one just has to take the author's word.