Rickenbacker

The Wings of Man: The Legend of Captain Dick Merrill By Jack L. King Aviation Book Company, 404 pp., $18.95

In every industry there’s a lad who comes along at the right time, gets a few lucky breaks, grows up with the business, has the good fortune to live long, and finally sees his life and the history of the industry so intertwined that they’ll never be separated. In the business of flying airplanes, especially passenger airliners, that lad is the legendary Dick Merrill.