A pictorial history of the groundbreaking jet bomber known as the Arado 234, including never-before-seen archival photos.This is the story of the Arado 234, an aircraft that on one day in 1944, in the skies above Normandy, heralded the beginning of a new era in military aviation.Many individuals over many years have contributed to the field of developmental aviation. One of these key players is Heinrich Lubbe, a man who marked the evolution of aerial transp...

Southern England. Late summer 1940. The nation is fighting for its very survival and the Luftwaffe's aerial offensive is unrelenting. All that lies between invasion and salvation for Britain is the 'thin blue line' of RAF Fighter Command and its pilots.This newly illustrated anniversary edition of Life as a Battle of Britain Pilot reveals what it was like to fly a fighter plane in the Battle of Britain. Who were the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots of 1940? H...

ACES AGAINST JAPAN The American Aces Speak Eric Hammel In this superb, originally conceived offering, noted military historian, Eric Hammel brings us first-person accounts from thirty-nine American fighter aces who blasted their way across the skies of the Pacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941, until the final air battles over Japan in August 1945. Coupled with a clear view of America's far-flung air war against Japan, Hammel's detailed interviews bring out the most thrilling ...

General Chuck Horner commanded the U.S. and allied air assets—the forces of a dozen nations—during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and was responsible for the design and execution of one of the most devastating air campaigns in history. Never before has the Gulf air war planning, a process filled with controversy and stormy personalities, been revealed in such rich, provocative detail. And in this revised edition, General Horner looks at the current Gulf conflict—and comments on the use of...

An amazing array of leaflets, books and manuals were issued by the Air Ministry during the Second World War to aid pilots in flying the Supermarine Spitfire, here for the first time they are collated into a single book. An introduction is supplied by expert aviation historian Dilip Sarkar. Other sections include aircraft recognition, how to act as an RAF officer, bailing out, and so on.

A unique account of the fastest British fighter plane of World War 2.Modified for low-level operations to counter Luftwaffe attacks on the south coast, the Griffon-powered Spitfire XIV became the best low-level fighter of World War II. Squadrons moved to south-eastern England to counter the V1 flying bomb offensive, where daring pilots pioneered the technique of tipping the V1 over with the aircraft's wingtip to disorientate the bomb. Andrew Thomas also investigate...

A fully-illustrated account of the duels between the carrier-borne interceptor of the US Navy and the agile MiG during the height of the Vietnam air war.The Vietnam War placed unexpected demands upon American military forces and equipment. The principal US naval fighter, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom, had originally been designed to defend the Fleet from air attack at long range. However, its tremendous power and bomb-carrying capacity made it an obvious candidate for ...

James Jim Davis lived what he considered an impossible dream as he piloted a B-24, as part of the 8th Air Force, on nearly thirty missions in the European Theatre during World War II. In this memoir, Davis offers heart-wrenching detail concerning the difficulties of qualifying for the U.S. Army Air Forces pilot program, the strenuous nature of the pilot training program, the anxiety caused by a wartime marriage, and the dangers of flying combat missions over Nazi Germany. Few, if any, othe...

The wartime exploits and experiences of an RAF bomber pathfinder squadron are recounted in this WWII history—"A stunning war book" ( Oxford Times, UK).Formed in July 1942, the Pathfinder Force was the corps d'élite of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command. The Squadrons of the PFF were tasked with marking targets and leading bomber formations to the right place at the right time. And the best of the force formed the crews of the master bombers, the aircraft...

The Kampfflieger are relatively unknown within aviation circles, although many of them had careers as distinguished as those of their fighter-pilot counterparts. The men of the bomber crews did not enjoy the luxury of combat tours – they flew until they died or became unfit for combat duty. This book studies the attitudes, beliefs and motivation of the average crewman, following him through recruitment and training to experience on campaign in western Europe, Africa and the Russian front, ...

The individual bravery and skill of the Battle of Britain pilots and the fighting qualities of their aircraft would have been in vain if they had not been part of a highly complex and sophisticated air defence system based on radar. The development of the system in just five years is one of the most remarkable scientific and technological accomplishments of the twentieth century. The creation of the radar defences has been somewhat overlooked over the years. Many of the studies of radar ha...

In the early 1970s, video arcade games sprung to life in the form of Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man, and if you were lucky enough to have an Atari system you could play Frogger or Galaga at home. By the 1980s, arcade and video games were entrenched as a pop culture phenomenon and were ubiquitous. But as quickly as the form took flight it began to change with the advent of hand-held games and more sophisticated home-gaming. Brian Eddy here traces the evolution of arcade video ...