Takeoff Into Greatness: How American Aviation Grew So Big So Fast (Repost)

This is a excellent history of the rise of the American aviation industry from before 1914 through the early 1960s. The author, Grover Loening, initially worked for Orville Wright in the Wright Brothers factory in Dayton, Ohio around 1908 - 1910. Loening personally knew many of the early aviation founders: Glenn Curtiss, Glenn Martin, Donald Douglas, Robert Boeing, Roy Grumman, and many others.
Loening also gives a searing critique of the US efforts to produce warplanes in WW I. As is pretty well known, the US aircraft manufacturing effort failed miserably.
The book describes the evolution of aviation and aircraft engine design and technology over the years. It also discusses the gradual establishment and organization of the US airline industry and the various federal aviation acts and laws to regulate aircraft safety, pilot qualifications, and airline flying routes. In the final couple of chapters, Loening speculates of what was then perceived as the future in the 1960s. He was very optimistic about the future of the supersonic transport (SST); clearly, he was a bit off with his predictions here. He was also enthusiastic about vertical take off and landing ( VTOL) craft. The military has developed this technology a little, but it has yet to catch on with civil aviation.