Phantoms of the Skies traces the largely forgotten history of aviation from antiquity through the Wright Brothers and beyond in a quest to tell the history of those who first dared to dream of ways to challenge the age-old belief that man should remain content to stay earthbound as God designed him to be. It is the story of the first men - and even a few women - who dared to believe that man could challenge such notions, sometimes even to the point of paying for such brashness with their very own lives.