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The Flying Carpet: Adventures in a Biplane from Timbuktu to Everest and Beyond
'I've just given myself an airplane and I want you to fly us to all the outlandish places in the world, Turkey, Persia, Paris and - Pasadena. We're going to fly across deserts, over mountains, rescue imprisoned princesses and fight dragons. We must have the world. We can have the world!'
Thirsting for a new adventure and announcing that 'an adventure not in the air is obsolete', Richard Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens in 1931 and fearlessly set out to circle the world in an open cockpit biplane optimistically named The Flying Carpet. For Halliburton it was the ultimate in romantic, risky exploration and was a means of seeing the world in a way that few had ever seen it before. True to form, his journey was breathtakingly audacious. They performed aerobatics in Fez, landed in mysterious Timbuktu, spent time with the French Foreign Legion in Algeria and explored Cairo, Damascus and Petra. In Iran, they met legendary aviatrix Ella Beinhorn and gave Princess Mahin Banu a ride. In Iraq, it was the turn of King Faisal's young son, Ghazi, who was escorted by two RAF fighter planes. In India, they flew over the Taj Mahal - upside down - and, soaring over the Himalayas, Halliburton took the first aerial photograph of Everest. In Borneo they were entertained by Sylvia Brooke, the 'White Queen of Borneo', and by the chief of the Iban Dyak headhunters, who gave them dozens of shrunken heads. A journey as dazzling as Halliburton himself and, with the world at war less than a decade later, marking the end of an era, the story of The Flying Carpet is as captivating today as it was to the world 80 years ago.
Thirsting for a new adventure and announcing that 'an adventure not in the air is obsolete', Richard Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens in 1931 and fearlessly set out to circle the world in an open cockpit biplane optimistically named The Flying Carpet. For Halliburton it was the ultimate in romantic, risky exploration and was a means of seeing the world in a way that few had ever seen it before. True to form, his journey was breathtakingly audacious. They performed aerobatics in Fez, landed in mysterious Timbuktu, spent time with the French Foreign Legion in Algeria and explored Cairo, Damascus and Petra. In Iran, they met legendary aviatrix Ella Beinhorn and gave Princess Mahin Banu a ride. In Iraq, it was the turn of King Faisal's young son, Ghazi, who was escorted by two RAF fighter planes. In India, they flew over the Taj Mahal - upside down - and, soaring over the Himalayas, Halliburton took the first aerial photograph of Everest. In Borneo they were entertained by Sylvia Brooke, the 'White Queen of Borneo', and by the chief of the Iban Dyak headhunters, who gave them dozens of shrunken heads. A journey as dazzling as Halliburton himself and, with the world at war less than a decade later, marking the end of an era, the story of The Flying Carpet is as captivating today as it was to the world 80 years ago.
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
12 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Richard Halliburton
47 books59 followersWriter, Lecturer, and World Traveler, Richard Halliburton published numerous books during his short lifetime. During his world travels, he visited exotic locales such as the Taj Mahal in India, climbed the Matterhorn, flew across the Sahara desert in a bi-winged plane, and swam the entire length of the Panama Canal. He also roamed the Mediterranean Sea retracing the route followed by Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey and crossed the Swiss Alps on the back of an elephant in a recreation of Hannibal's expedition. Halliburton died (or, more accurately, disappeared) in March 1939 as he and his crew attempted to sail a Chinese junk, the Sea Dragon, from Hong Kong to San Francisco as a publicity stunt. The vessel was unseaworthy and went down in a storm around March 23-24, 1939. His body was never recovered
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
October 17, 2019
Halliburton is an interesting character - "travel as an unconventional career" is the way his Wikipedia page puts it. A lifetime of travel and exploration, writing books and soliciting sponsorship. He is amusing and is appealing and interesting to the people he meets, making him popular as a guest, as is plain to see in this book.
This book covers his 1931 expedition in a small plane named The Flying Carpet, where he visited 34 countries in a somewhat random zig-zagging route based on where Halliburton might want to go next. He employs Moye Stephens - a 'proper' pilot to fly him on a "no pay but unlimited expenses" basis, in which Stephens gets to enjoy the adventures. They basically go for it from there. The book skips over a great many of the countries they visited, many receiving just a sentence of a paragraph, but they concentrate on places interesting to write / read about - and the more out of the way experiences.
They spend some time in Mali - where they visit Morocco, then Timbuctoo, because it was a place Halliburton always wanted to visit due to its exotic name - (as good a reason as any), and then a good long time in Algeria with the French Foreign Legion, until they outstay their welcome. Then some flying over the Matterhorn and some time in Venice. Some time in Istanbul, then on to Israel and some zipping about the Middle East - Jordan, then Iraq and on to Persia (Iran). In each of these places they examine the culture, meet interesting people and most of all enjoy themselves, get into adventures and a share of trouble.
Not shy of a drink (or seven), Halliburton also plays up a role in womanising - seeking a Persian Princess, attracting the attention of German aviator Elly Beinhorn in her plane on her own journey (and then competing with Stephens for her affection) all despite Halliburton being homosexual, which I guess was playing to his audience a bit.
From Persia they travel on to India and then Nepal, before finishing the journey (in the book) in Sarawak in Borneo, where they examine the Rajah Brook story and visit with headhunters. The journey ends shortly after in the Philippines, where they load their plane onto a ship and head back to the States.
It is a short but interesting and varied book. Halliburton is likable and entertaining, and writes well with pace and excitement, and doesn't mind displaying his own flaws and weaknesses or his own bad decisions, all of which make it a great read. Crown princes, princesses, the French Foreign Legion, Mount Everest (unconquered at the time of writing), Chief Koh the headhunter, Elly Beinhorn and the many other interesting people all play their part in the story.
I will keep an eye out any of his other many books too.
4.5 stars, rounded down to 4.
This book covers his 1931 expedition in a small plane named The Flying Carpet, where he visited 34 countries in a somewhat random zig-zagging route based on where Halliburton might want to go next. He employs Moye Stephens - a 'proper' pilot to fly him on a "no pay but unlimited expenses" basis, in which Stephens gets to enjoy the adventures. They basically go for it from there. The book skips over a great many of the countries they visited, many receiving just a sentence of a paragraph, but they concentrate on places interesting to write / read about - and the more out of the way experiences.
They spend some time in Mali - where they visit Morocco, then Timbuctoo, because it was a place Halliburton always wanted to visit due to its exotic name - (as good a reason as any), and then a good long time in Algeria with the French Foreign Legion, until they outstay their welcome. Then some flying over the Matterhorn and some time in Venice. Some time in Istanbul, then on to Israel and some zipping about the Middle East - Jordan, then Iraq and on to Persia (Iran). In each of these places they examine the culture, meet interesting people and most of all enjoy themselves, get into adventures and a share of trouble.
Not shy of a drink (or seven), Halliburton also plays up a role in womanising - seeking a Persian Princess, attracting the attention of German aviator Elly Beinhorn in her plane on her own journey (and then competing with Stephens for her affection) all despite Halliburton being homosexual, which I guess was playing to his audience a bit.
From Persia they travel on to India and then Nepal, before finishing the journey (in the book) in Sarawak in Borneo, where they examine the Rajah Brook story and visit with headhunters. The journey ends shortly after in the Philippines, where they load their plane onto a ship and head back to the States.
It is a short but interesting and varied book. Halliburton is likable and entertaining, and writes well with pace and excitement, and doesn't mind displaying his own flaws and weaknesses or his own bad decisions, all of which make it a great read. Crown princes, princesses, the French Foreign Legion, Mount Everest (unconquered at the time of writing), Chief Koh the headhunter, Elly Beinhorn and the many other interesting people all play their part in the story.
I will keep an eye out any of his other many books too.
4.5 stars, rounded down to 4.
September 28, 2016
In 1931, adventure junky Richard Halliburton hired Moye Stephens to fly him around the world in a two-seater bi-plane dubbed The Flying Carpet. Along they way, when he wasn’t reading the Arabian Nights or playing his phonograph under that stars to the awestruck locals, he was taking copious notes. What resulted was this book.
As with all of Halliburton’s travel books, the pace of this romantic tale is pell-mell. The two travelers take to the skies in Hollywood, California and within five pages they’re circling Paris. Another chapter and they’ve made Timbuctoo, where they are almost downed by an enormous swarm of storks all lifting off simultaneously from the roofs of the mud city. Other highlights of their two-year flight of fancy are marching across the Sahara with the French Foreign Legion, swimming down Venice’s Grand Canal in nothing but briefs (and facing arrest and arraignment in nothing but wet briefs), fishing on Galilee’s shores, wandering through Petra’s fantastic architecture, spending a few nights in Teheran’s jail (at Halliburton’s request), swimming once again in the Taj Mahal’s lily pond, dining with headhunters in Borneo, and hunting crocodiles in the Phillipines. I’ve left out a lot.
In fact, the book could have been a lot thinner and still have been just as entertaining. Unfortunately, before embarking on this adventure, Halliburton completed a course of English composition at a local university. You’ll trip over the results: paragraphs smothered with choliambic adjectives, clumps of annoying verse, and a few chapters (I’m thinking of the nightingale story in particular) of some of the most nauseating travel writing I’ve ever choked down. On the up side, Halliburton has learned to trim back some of his waspish, colonialist observations that left such a lingering stink in some of his earlier books.
What saves the book is Singapore. The crew of the Flying Carpet were grounded there for several weeks while the plane was outfitted with pontoons. Halliburton took this opportunity to catalog in one startling chapter all the mechanical difficulties he had encountered since the trip began: a faltering engine, ripped fuselage, broken pushrods, lost maps, punctured pontoons to name a few of the mishaps that plagued them. Up to Singapore the book reads like a newsreel, all very pleasant, sometimes silly, and remarkably shallow. After Singapore, it almost reads like real travel writing. I think the book only gets good once Halliburton admits that for part of the time at least, the going was pretty rough and tumble.
What also saves the book are the curious people Halliburton met along the way: Moye Stephens, his pilot, who co-founded Northrop Aircraft, Inc.; Elly Beinhorn, the Flying Fraulein, one of the great aviatrixes of the Thirties (she lived to be over 100); Père Yakouba, a Roman Catholic priest who had gone native in Timbuctoo; the brawling, drunken German lads who made up the backbone of the French Foreign Legion; Ghazi, the Crowned Prince of Iraq, who mysteriously died a few years after his joy ride over Baghdad; Ranee Sylvia, British wife of the Great White Rajah of Sarawak.
The Flying Carpet isn’t a specimen of great writing, not even of great travel writing. But it’s entertaining in a corny, but still enlivening sort of way. And Halliburton’s spirited optimism makes for a perky read, in spite of the book’s superficiality. If you liked Bing and Bob "On the Road to .....", you’ll gobble up Halliburton.
As with all of Halliburton’s travel books, the pace of this romantic tale is pell-mell. The two travelers take to the skies in Hollywood, California and within five pages they’re circling Paris. Another chapter and they’ve made Timbuctoo, where they are almost downed by an enormous swarm of storks all lifting off simultaneously from the roofs of the mud city. Other highlights of their two-year flight of fancy are marching across the Sahara with the French Foreign Legion, swimming down Venice’s Grand Canal in nothing but briefs (and facing arrest and arraignment in nothing but wet briefs), fishing on Galilee’s shores, wandering through Petra’s fantastic architecture, spending a few nights in Teheran’s jail (at Halliburton’s request), swimming once again in the Taj Mahal’s lily pond, dining with headhunters in Borneo, and hunting crocodiles in the Phillipines. I’ve left out a lot.
In fact, the book could have been a lot thinner and still have been just as entertaining. Unfortunately, before embarking on this adventure, Halliburton completed a course of English composition at a local university. You’ll trip over the results: paragraphs smothered with choliambic adjectives, clumps of annoying verse, and a few chapters (I’m thinking of the nightingale story in particular) of some of the most nauseating travel writing I’ve ever choked down. On the up side, Halliburton has learned to trim back some of his waspish, colonialist observations that left such a lingering stink in some of his earlier books.
What saves the book is Singapore. The crew of the Flying Carpet were grounded there for several weeks while the plane was outfitted with pontoons. Halliburton took this opportunity to catalog in one startling chapter all the mechanical difficulties he had encountered since the trip began: a faltering engine, ripped fuselage, broken pushrods, lost maps, punctured pontoons to name a few of the mishaps that plagued them. Up to Singapore the book reads like a newsreel, all very pleasant, sometimes silly, and remarkably shallow. After Singapore, it almost reads like real travel writing. I think the book only gets good once Halliburton admits that for part of the time at least, the going was pretty rough and tumble.
What also saves the book are the curious people Halliburton met along the way: Moye Stephens, his pilot, who co-founded Northrop Aircraft, Inc.; Elly Beinhorn, the Flying Fraulein, one of the great aviatrixes of the Thirties (she lived to be over 100); Père Yakouba, a Roman Catholic priest who had gone native in Timbuctoo; the brawling, drunken German lads who made up the backbone of the French Foreign Legion; Ghazi, the Crowned Prince of Iraq, who mysteriously died a few years after his joy ride over Baghdad; Ranee Sylvia, British wife of the Great White Rajah of Sarawak.
The Flying Carpet isn’t a specimen of great writing, not even of great travel writing. But it’s entertaining in a corny, but still enlivening sort of way. And Halliburton’s spirited optimism makes for a perky read, in spite of the book’s superficiality. If you liked Bing and Bob "On the Road to .....", you’ll gobble up Halliburton.
May 21, 2011
Wonderful book! It is the story of the author and his friend Moye Stephens who, in 1931, flew from L.A. to New York, put their Stearman bi-plane on a boat to Paris then flew to Manila and put it on another boat back to the States.
Along the way they flew down to Timbuktu. Gas in the Sahara was $4.00 a gallon, in 1931!!!! And we complain today. They flew up to Algeria and spent time with the Foreign Legion. Then back to Paris for servicing before flying over the Matterhorn, swimming in a canal in Venice, then down to Jerusalem. They continued on to Baghdad and Tehran (where they purposely got tossed in jail for a few days). From there they went to Karachi, Delhi and Agra where Halliburton swam in the pool of the Taj Mahal (couldn't do that these days). They also flew close to Mt Everest but with an 18,000 ceiling on their plane they only got to the foothills. Finally they speeded up the rest of their trip through Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore and on to Borneo where the took a chief headhunter up for a spin making him a local legend.
If I had one complaint it is that there are no dates anywhere in the book. Some places they stayed for two months. According to the internet they took 18 months to complete the trip. They must have been independently wealthy because they never seemed to lack for funds.
If this sort of adventure interests you it would be worthwhile looking for this likely out of print book!
Along the way they flew down to Timbuktu. Gas in the Sahara was $4.00 a gallon, in 1931!!!! And we complain today. They flew up to Algeria and spent time with the Foreign Legion. Then back to Paris for servicing before flying over the Matterhorn, swimming in a canal in Venice, then down to Jerusalem. They continued on to Baghdad and Tehran (where they purposely got tossed in jail for a few days). From there they went to Karachi, Delhi and Agra where Halliburton swam in the pool of the Taj Mahal (couldn't do that these days). They also flew close to Mt Everest but with an 18,000 ceiling on their plane they only got to the foothills. Finally they speeded up the rest of their trip through Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore and on to Borneo where the took a chief headhunter up for a spin making him a local legend.
If I had one complaint it is that there are no dates anywhere in the book. Some places they stayed for two months. According to the internet they took 18 months to complete the trip. They must have been independently wealthy because they never seemed to lack for funds.
If this sort of adventure interests you it would be worthwhile looking for this likely out of print book!
July 22, 2023
I’ve carried around an old copy of this book for years, and finally had time to read it. I found it an interesting and fun read. These are the travels you dreamed of in your youth - death-flying flights to exotic places not visited by cruise ships or package tours. Written in 1931-32, the book contains some wince- inducing comments about women and non-Caucasians, but by the standards of his time, he appears to be reasonably non-offensive. If you’re a fan of vintage travel, you’ll enjoy this.
January 27, 2013
Now, made even better with age, is Halliburton's bountiful true tale of pulling the stops and going for it. It's the 1930s. It's an open cockpit Stearman biplane. Hop in and strap in for a great ride.
The many decades since this book appeared have added a glow and patina to the story and the action packed writing.
Find a gently used edition in an old bookstore, like I did. Don't we all love the used bookstore finds?
The many decades since this book appeared have added a glow and patina to the story and the action packed writing.
Find a gently used edition in an old bookstore, like I did. Don't we all love the used bookstore finds?
June 12, 2012
A grain of salt is needed, but it's a fun read and an interesting social commentary on a bygone era.
July 30, 2022
"No obstante, esa era nuestra situación, y no quedaba más remedio que afrontarla. Nuestros ánimos no decaían en lo más mínimo. Es más, las dificultades que nos esperaban nos provocaban cierta euforia. El Sáhara era cruel y desafiante, pero no esperábamos otra cosa. Si fuera un lugar seguro, común y corriente, no supondría ningún tipo de reto, atravesarlo no nos produciría ningún tipo de satisfacción. Estábamos seguros de que el avión nos llevaría sanos y salvos al otro lado, sólo tendríamos que confiar en nosotros mismos."
Relato de las aventuras del multimillonario Richard Halliburton y el aviador Moye Stephens mientras dan la vuelta al mundo en su bioplano "The Flying Carpet". Intrépido, romántico y divertido, da a conocer lugares y sociedades de lo más remotas y exóticas: Tombuctú, Bel Abbes, Jerusalén, Petra, los Himalayas, Sarawak… Y presenta a personas variopintas como soldados de la legión francesa, pescadores, príncipes y princesas, la aviadora Elle Beinhorn y el jefe Koh de los cazadores de cabezas.
Algunas acciones y comentarios deben ser tomadas con reservas porque su mentalidad no es igual a la de nuestra época pero eso no deja de convertirlo en un libro de aventuras excepcional!
Relato de las aventuras del multimillonario Richard Halliburton y el aviador Moye Stephens mientras dan la vuelta al mundo en su bioplano "The Flying Carpet". Intrépido, romántico y divertido, da a conocer lugares y sociedades de lo más remotas y exóticas: Tombuctú, Bel Abbes, Jerusalén, Petra, los Himalayas, Sarawak… Y presenta a personas variopintas como soldados de la legión francesa, pescadores, príncipes y princesas, la aviadora Elle Beinhorn y el jefe Koh de los cazadores de cabezas.
Algunas acciones y comentarios deben ser tomadas con reservas porque su mentalidad no es igual a la de nuestra época pero eso no deja de convertirlo en un libro de aventuras excepcional!
March 17, 2018
It's the travel literature at its peak! From the first chapter, I am simply abducted by the Halliburton to take on his flashing biplane for his next exploration, adventure, sky-watching, and even boyish, unplanned wandering. Burying beneath those fabulous narratives of the places to see, people to meet, and stories to tell, the real beauty of Halliburton's writings, I think, is its magical power of enticing the readers to link up with a more romantic and carefree era long gone with today's proletarian globalization.
January 2, 2020
This was a new genre for me and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I assigned this to my year 11 homeschooled daughter as a geography title. Parents will want to preview or possibly omit the last three chapters for discussion of the "free and open" society in Borneo.
December 5, 2020
Halliburton describes his round-the-world journey in 1931-1932 by 'adding a little lipstick' to the events. The only factual narrative of the flight in a Stearman piloted by Moye W. Stephens is in Stephens' biography - Flying Carpets, Flying Wings.
January 18, 2018
Second book I have read by Halliburton. I love these travel books! He makes you feel like you're right there with him. Definitely will continue reading his books.
August 26, 2018
My father read this book in 1934. I read Flying Carpet in 1959. My son read the book about 1997. My grandson, age 4, already has his copy. You get the idea, I'm sure.
November 23, 2018
What a book. Be impressed
October 14, 2016
A very interesting book by Halliburton. In those days, you could go up to a plane in the hangar, ask its owner whether it was for sale and buy it on the spot for a very small amount of money. (Relatively)
December 24, 2021
I am working on this review and trying to decide how much of what I read is strictly true and how often Halliburton indulged in poetic license. The airplane flights between cities sound realistic. That R.H. is allowed to stay past closing in tourist spots and go beyond the barriers in others is plausible because he admits to bribing the necessary people. Strictly true or not, I enjoyed the book and will look for others by him.
page 33 R.H. called the Sahara "A world that supported no form of life since the beginning and would never support life until the end of time." This sounded too poetic so I googled it and Wikipedia tells me that the climate of the Sahara cycles between wet and dry over a 41000-year cycle. At present we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years. So, apparently, the Sahara was green some time ago and could be green again, depending on the exact date of "the end of time."
page 48 R.H. recounts buying a boy and a girl about 10-years-old and his largely unsuccessful attempts to train them. He states that, although slavery was illegal, it was still possible to buy people at the Tuareg camp outside the city of Timbuktu. When it was time to leave, R.H. has to pay the Tuareg chief to take them back. I was left with the feeling that the chief was running a scam and R.H. was telling a joke on himself. Other sources claim that none of it is true; the story was a riff off photos that Halliburton had taken because Halliburton needed something colorful to tell reporters in Paris.
page 79 Impersonating a Militaires du rang in the French Foreign Legion. The way R.H. tells it, he and his pilot bought uniforms and lived in a tent with Legionnaires. There are photos of him there so at least some of this is true.
page 115 A hidden message, according to Halliburton biographer James Cortese.
page 224 A 5-star prison in Teheran. R.H. hears that you haven't really experienced Teheran until you've been in prison so he arranges to be incarcerated along with his pilot. The authorities know who he is but his fellow prisoners do not. According to his story, the prison is relatively comfortable compared to his hotel. the meals rival the best restaurants, and prisoners are taught a trade or allowed to continue rug making, copper or silver smithing, or whatever they did on the outside. R.H. explains that this is why he is allowed to have his camera. Eventually, the other prisoners discover his trick, it stops being amusing and he asks to leave. There are a couple of photos apparently taken inside the prison but some of this just can't be true.
page 33 R.H. called the Sahara "A world that supported no form of life since the beginning and would never support life until the end of time." This sounded too poetic so I googled it and Wikipedia tells me that the climate of the Sahara cycles between wet and dry over a 41000-year cycle. At present we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years. So, apparently, the Sahara was green some time ago and could be green again, depending on the exact date of "the end of time."
page 48 R.H. recounts buying a boy and a girl about 10-years-old and his largely unsuccessful attempts to train them. He states that, although slavery was illegal, it was still possible to buy people at the Tuareg camp outside the city of Timbuktu. When it was time to leave, R.H. has to pay the Tuareg chief to take them back. I was left with the feeling that the chief was running a scam and R.H. was telling a joke on himself. Other sources claim that none of it is true; the story was a riff off photos that Halliburton had taken because Halliburton needed something colorful to tell reporters in Paris.
page 79 Impersonating a Militaires du rang in the French Foreign Legion. The way R.H. tells it, he and his pilot bought uniforms and lived in a tent with Legionnaires. There are photos of him there so at least some of this is true.
page 115 A hidden message, according to Halliburton biographer James Cortese.
page 224 A 5-star prison in Teheran. R.H. hears that you haven't really experienced Teheran until you've been in prison so he arranges to be incarcerated along with his pilot. The authorities know who he is but his fellow prisoners do not. According to his story, the prison is relatively comfortable compared to his hotel. the meals rival the best restaurants, and prisoners are taught a trade or allowed to continue rug making, copper or silver smithing, or whatever they did on the outside. R.H. explains that this is why he is allowed to have his camera. Eventually, the other prisoners discover his trick, it stops being amusing and he asks to leave. There are a couple of photos apparently taken inside the prison but some of this just can't be true.
February 19, 2016
A rollicking adventure, high jinks, thrills, spills from one of the first celebrity travel writers. Richard Halliburton was a well-born and expensively educated American, whose success surprised him, rewarded him with rock star wealth, sunday evening spots on the radio and allowed him to live the life of a vagabond traveller between the two world wars.
The two travellers - Halliburton and his pilot Moye Stephens circumnavigated the globe over two years in an open (no cockpit) biplane with a Wright Brothers engine, flew through the Sahara, nearly crashed in Timbuctoo and numerous other places, rescued a German damsel in distress who was doing the same thing on her own, took Persian royalty aloft for pleasure flights, lived alongside cannibals and left with a bag of shrunken human skulls, before safely returning home.
For me, this is the best travel book ever, from an irrepressible enthusiast who for personal reasons just couldn't go home, he had to stay on the road. And whilst energetically presented in campfire story-telling style, it's all true, as verified by his diary, letters home to his parents and various historians. If you read the book you'll fall in love with Halliburton.
More: http://www.historynet.com/richard-hal...
The two travellers - Halliburton and his pilot Moye Stephens circumnavigated the globe over two years in an open (no cockpit) biplane with a Wright Brothers engine, flew through the Sahara, nearly crashed in Timbuctoo and numerous other places, rescued a German damsel in distress who was doing the same thing on her own, took Persian royalty aloft for pleasure flights, lived alongside cannibals and left with a bag of shrunken human skulls, before safely returning home.
For me, this is the best travel book ever, from an irrepressible enthusiast who for personal reasons just couldn't go home, he had to stay on the road. And whilst energetically presented in campfire story-telling style, it's all true, as verified by his diary, letters home to his parents and various historians. If you read the book you'll fall in love with Halliburton.
More: http://www.historynet.com/richard-hal...
January 2, 2014
I have read three other books by Richard Halliburton and thoroughly enjoyed them... which really just added to my disappointment with "The Flying Carpet." It no way lives up to his three prior travel books, which were funny, interesting and chock full of enlightening anecdotes.
I have to say the book went right off the rails early on, when Halliburton and his friend purchase African children as slaves, justifying this with "well, my grandfather was a slave owner." This is the 1930's.... and this American traveler should have known better at that point. Not to mention his absolute anguish in a later story about a nightingale trapped in a cage. Ugh.
Additionally, most of the stories in this book, which covers his flight around the world in the plane "The Flying Carpet" lack the spark that made the other books good. The most interesting tales are very reminiscent of prior adventures (he loves to swim in places he shouldn't...) so the story seemed a little tired.
I probably will read his fifth and final book (mainly because I'm a completist.) If I had started with "The Flying Carpet," I never would have read anything else by Halliburton.
I have to say the book went right off the rails early on, when Halliburton and his friend purchase African children as slaves, justifying this with "well, my grandfather was a slave owner." This is the 1930's.... and this American traveler should have known better at that point. Not to mention his absolute anguish in a later story about a nightingale trapped in a cage. Ugh.
Additionally, most of the stories in this book, which covers his flight around the world in the plane "The Flying Carpet" lack the spark that made the other books good. The most interesting tales are very reminiscent of prior adventures (he loves to swim in places he shouldn't...) so the story seemed a little tired.
I probably will read his fifth and final book (mainly because I'm a completist.) If I had started with "The Flying Carpet," I never would have read anything else by Halliburton.
October 28, 2016
A recommendation by my grandfather years ago (one of his favourite books), I finally read it myself. A very enjoyable telling of the author's adventures traveling around the world in a bi-plane at the open of the 1930's.
January 2, 2017
Just re-read this adventure (55 years later!!!).
This time I was able to accompany the adventure with Google views, photos and stories about the places they visited, as well as one of the famous people they travelled with (Elly Bienhorn).
This time I was able to accompany the adventure with Google views, photos and stories about the places they visited, as well as one of the famous people they travelled with (Elly Bienhorn).
January 14, 2017
As a child of around 10, this is the book that inspired me to travel!
The description of the approach to Timbuktu stuck in my memory and eventually in 2005, I made the same trip. I wasn't disappointed.
The description of the approach to Timbuktu stuck in my memory and eventually in 2005, I made the same trip. I wasn't disappointed.
December 13, 2007
I had this book for a long time but let it get away from me.
Haliburton wrote many travel books but was lost sailing a Chinese junk to america.
Haliburton wrote many travel books but was lost sailing a Chinese junk to america.
January 16, 2013
An enjoyable book, best read in small snippets in the hammock or before bed. One has to be mindful of a few racist overtones indicative of the time.
April 8, 2015
Absolutely loved it!!! Those were the days of the 'great adventure', and boy! did Richard Halliburton have adventures!!!
January 2, 2016
An interesting trip around the world in an open bi-plane after wwI. Many "firsts" and out molded attitudes and writing; keeps it interesting.
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