Angel Falls is the world's tallest waterfall: a persistent, geographical nugget. Few would recall it drops almost a kilometre from a revered Venezuelan tabletop mountain, colourfully depicted in the 2009 animated Pixar film Up. Fewer still would appreciate that its name is not an allusion of size or spirituality, but of an unsung pilot who brought it to public attention in the 1930s. James 'Jimmie' Angel was born in Missouri in 1899 and died in the Panama Canal Zone in 1956. He spent much of his life outside his homeland, often far from his family. He came to love the vast South American skies; here was his own sky-country, the place where he perfected his skills as an aviator-explorer-entrepreneur. Stories continue to swirl around him, but a painstaking family quest now enables us to separate more of man from myth than ever before.
展开▼
