The Aircraft Boys of Lakeport
: it is 1912. The Wright Brothers famous flight took place only nine years earlier. By the start of World War I, airplanes were performing recon, artillery spotting and attacks against ground positions. Lindbergh's solo transatlantic flight took place in 1927. But it wasn't until thousands of pilots came home after the end of WWII, in 1945, that general aviation boomed. Stratemeyer's descriptions of the reliability of aircraft are probably overstated, and his assessment of limited damage and injury understated, but without any regulations whatsoever, it's entirely possible that the Lakeport teens could have learned to fly. It is interesting to note that the term "air plane" does not appear in the book even once; Stratemeyer used "aircraft." Regardless, action, adventure, high drama, and right vs. wrong make this last volume in the series another delightful, fast-paced book.