3: Let's Kill the Moonlight. Even before the invention of aircraft, writers like HG Wells conjured up visions of an aerial apocalypse. For the Futurists, the reality of flight offered the deadly possibilities of the machine age. For others, there was "the beautiful death" of aviators, inspiration for poets like Edmond Rostand and Romain Rolland. And what of the aviators themselves, forever pushing back the boundaries? Were they self-destructive young men addicted to their flying coffins?
