American military aviation reached a low point after World War I, lagging behind its European counterparts and facing a peacetime battle for survival. To raise the public profile of aviation, military leaders encouraged their pilots to enter air shows and vie for speed, endurance, and altitude records. As a result, U.S. Army airmen daringly accomplished the first flight around the world in 1924, three years before Charles Lindbergh's famous solo flight. In Around the World in 175 Days, Carroll V. Glines recounts this adventure from the golden age of aviation. After two years of planning, four Douglas World Cruisers, each carrying a pilot and a mechanic, took off from Seattle in April 1924, flying west to circle the globe; one additional plane was held in reserve. Four of the men and two of the planes completed the flight in September 1924 and, miraculously, all eight men survived, even though one plane had crashed in the Alaskan mountains and another had ditched in the Atlantic. The airmen had triumphed over the weather extremes of Arctic Alaska and the desert Middle East, numerous primitive landing sites in rough terrain, and maintenance and supply problems that persisted despite the coordinated efforts of land- and sea-based support personnel from the Army Air Service, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Coast Guard. Glines captures the drama of the journey, from the careful behind-the-scenes planning through the airmen's harrowing in-flight experiences to the mission's culmination in triumph. The success charted the future of the Army Air Service's worldwide aircraft deployment and paved the way for long-distance commercial air travel.

Originally published in hardcover in 2012.

Throughout 100-plus years of flight, Purdue University has propelled unique contributions from pioneer educators, aviators, and engineers who flew balloons into the stratosphere, barnstormed the countryside, helped break the sound barrier, and left footprints in lunar soil. Wings of Their Dreams follows the flight plans and footsteps of aviation's pioneers and trailblazers across the twentieth century, a path from Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility and beyond. The book reminds readers that the first and last men to land on the moon first trekked across the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus on their journeys into the heavens and history. This is the story of an aeronautic odyssey of imagination, science, engineering, technology, adventure, courage, danger, and promise. It is the story of the human spirit taking flight, entwined with Purdue's legacy in aviation's history.

This is not a book just about flying a single engine airplane around the world. This is the book about identifying the “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” in our lives and finding a way to accomplish it through focus and discipline. The author accomplished three dreams: the dream of coming to the U.S. and getting an MBA degree (when he hardly spoke any English); the dream of starting a company and becoming a self-made millionaire (when he had no money, no business plan, no investors, no social network, and no experience); the dream of becoming the first Chinese citizen to fly a single-engine airplane around the world (when he had barely 200 hours of flying time and two years of flying experiences). By sharing these stories, the author challenges everyone to think about one question: “What would you attempt to do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

A battle rages for the heart and soul of America. For one group, the idea of “American Exceptionalism” is dead. Some never tire of lecturing us about how out-of-step America is with the rest of the world and how she needs to get with it. Worse, America, they say, is bad for the world. Her freedom and prosperity are merely historical accidents. Of course, this narrative presupposes there are better places in the world to live. Are there? Were Alec Baldwin to leave the country permanently as he once promised, where would he go?