author
Albert Francis Zahm
1862–1954
A pioneer of early flight, this physicist helped turn aviation from bold experiment into careful science. His work ranged from wind-tunnel research to preserving the story of aviation’s first breakthroughs.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Ohio in 1862, Albert Francis Zahm became an American aeronautical experimenter, physics professor, and one of the early figures who helped shape aviation as a serious field of study. He was educated at Notre Dame, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins, and his career connected academic science with the practical problems of flight.
Zahm is especially remembered for his experimental work in aerodynamics and for helping develop early aviation research in the United States. He taught at the Catholic University of America, later served as chief of the Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Library of Congress, and was also called on as an expert during the famous legal disputes between the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss.
He died in 1954, after a long life spent close to the earliest chapters of powered flight. For readers interested in the human side of aviation history, Zahm stands out as both a hands-on investigator and a careful recorder of how the age of flight began.