The central figure in Szyk's History of Flight is Leonardo DaVinci, holding a representation of his 1483 study of an aircraft invention. He is framed by vignettes of the inventions of the ensuing centuries, beginning with De Lana of 1670 and continuing with other noted aviation luminaries, such as Stringfellow of 1848 and The Wright Brothers of 1903. The visual history culminates with a representative state-of-the-art airplane of 1945, ascending into the clouds above Leonardo DaVinci and crowned with a winged hourglass, a reference to "the wings of time."

Of the original sixty images commissioned by Bileski, only ten brilliantly colored, highly detailed illuminations were completed and printed prior to Szyk's sudden death in 1951. With the loss of his colleague and friend, their project unfinished, Bileski carefully packed away the lithographs of all ten images, where they remained in storage for over 40 years.