Many of the individuals who made prominent contributions to the technology of flight have attracted little historical attention; yet their accomplishments served to stimulate progress in aerospace development. This work represents an effort to foster interest in flight technologists and their contributions to vehicle performance. Information scattered throughout the literature is assembled herein to provide students of flight history with a convenient source of biographical material on 129 technologists. The biographical sketches are arranged in chronological order of contribution following each topical discussion. The topics include bouyant flight; aerodynamics; air-breathing propulsion; materials, structures, and design; vertical flight; and rocketry and space flight.

Introduction -- Engineers and aeronautics -- Acknowledgements -- Buoyant flight -- Balloons -- Airships -- Biographic sketches -- Aerodynamics -- The formative years, 1687-1915 -- The years of progressive refinement, 1915-1935 -- The years of sonic achievement, 1935- -- Biographic sketches -- Air-breathing propulsion -- Predecessors of the aircraft engine -- Steam engines -- Automobile engines -- The aircraft engine -- Exhaust valves -- Superchargers -- Carburetors and fuel-injection systems -- Variable pitch propellers -- Turbojet engines -- Biographic sketchs -- Flight structures -- Materials, structures, and design -- Biographic sketches -- Vertical flight -- Autogiros -- Helicopters -- Biographic sketches -- Rocketry and space flight -- The formative years -- The transition to space -- Biographic sketches.