by Donald E. Skiff (Author)
The Douglas Dolphin was an amphibious flying boat, one of a torrent of aircraft designed and built in the decades following the Great War (World War I) to realize man's long-held dream of flying with the birds. While only 58 Dolphins were built, they served a wide variety of roles: private "air yacht", airliner, military transport, and search and rescue. Wilmington-Catalina Airlines, Ltd bought the first two Dolphins in 1931 to transport passengers from the California mainland to and from Santa Catalina Island. Edward (Eddie) Norris is a fictional character whose life-long dream was aviation and whose first airplane flight was in a Dolphin, when he was fourteen years old. Eddie's story is part of the story of the 1930s, when commercial aviation came of age.