To Lasso the Clouds

The story of the first airplane flight in Georgia has not been told correctly in more than one hundred years. The year given for this flight, 1907, is not correct, the plane identified as the first to fly never got off the ground, and Ben T. Epps, Sr. is incorrectly credited, solely, with achieving this feat. To Lasso the Clouds sets the historical record straight.

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The story of the first airplane flight in Georgia has not been told correctly in more than one hundred years. The year given for this flight, 1907, is not correct, the plane identified as the first to fly never got off the ground, and Ben T. Epps, Sr. is incorrectly credited, solely, with achieving this feat. To Lasso the Clouds sets the historical record straight and brings to light the complete, incredible story of the two young men from Athens, Georgia who achieved their dream of flight. Epps and Zumpt A. Huff were described by one newspaper after that first flight as a “second pair of Wright brothers.” On their journey to build a machine capable of sustained, controlled flight, this unlikely pair crossed paths with some of the world’s greatest icons including: Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company; Glenn Curtis, father of Naval Aviation and founder of the American Aircraft Industry; Alessandro Anzani, an Italian, world-famous for designing and building motorcycle and airplane engines; Louis Blériot, a Frenchman, who was the first person in the world to fly a monoplane; and Bobby Walthour of Atlanta, Georgia, World Champion bicyclist in 1904 and 1905, and perhaps the greatest athlete in the world at the time. Most surprising of all, this book reveals their flight was the first flight of a monoplane in the United States—a record of which even they were not aware.