A Bomber Command book with a difference. Rear Gunner Pathfinders is the story of the air war over Germany as seen from the small Perspex bubble of a 'Tail-End Charlie' rear gunner in a Lancaster. Flying firstly with 626 squadron, and later 156 Pathfinder squadron, Ron Smith flew 65 operations and recorded them with the intensity brought on by the isolation of being cocooned in his lonely gun turret.

Many people are surprised to learn that the city of Amarillo was actually founded twice. Originally settled by J. T. Berry in April 1887 and known as Oneida, the site of the town was located on such low ground that many residents feared it was susceptible to flooding. In 1888, one concerned resident named Henry B. Sanborn began buying land a mile east of the site as a potential place to relocate the town. In 1889, the town's fears came to fruition when heavy rains flooded the original town...

After the Civil War, state and national Prohibition galvanized in Atlanta the issues of classism, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. While many consider flappers and gangsters the iconic images of the era, in reality, it was marked with temperance zealotry, blind tigers and white lightning. Georgia's protracted and intense battle changed the industrial and social landscapes of its capital city and unleashed a flood of illegal liquor that continually flowed in the wettest city in the Sout...

"Delve[s] into a colorful past . . . Stories of early taverns and saloons, religious zeal, prohibition and the roots of the current craft beer boom." — A tlanta Journal ConstitutionAtlanta is a unique southern city known for its vast diversity and fast-paced lifestyle. Rarely is it associated with a rich beer and brewing culture, but not for a lack of one. From Atlanta's first brewery in the 1850s to the city's Saloon Row and the ...

The title of Ron Smith’s new collection comes from Yeats’s observation that creators “must go from desire to weariness and so to desire again, and live but for the moment when vision comes to our weariness like terrible lightning, in the humility of the brutes.” The poems in The Humility of the Brutes move beyond Yeats’s journey, using precise language and memorable phrasing to push through skepticism and guide us toward the mystical as we struggle to understand our past and our p...

From the Mediterranean to the American West, the poems in Ron Smith's new collection move across time and place to find reliable truths through personal observation. Beyond his own experiences Smith draws from the lives of notable and diverse figures -- Edward Teller, Edgar Allan Poe, Mickey Mantle, Ezra Pound, Robert Penn Warren, Jesse Owens, Leni Riefenstahl, and many others.Its Ghostly Workshop probes the fallibility of philosophy while strengthening the quest for certainty. Wond...

You have asked questions that no lab can settle. Should you pull the lever if it saves 5 lives and ends 1. Is the person who wakes up with no memory of yesterday still you. Could your entire life be a simulation you cannot detect. This book puts 100 of those questions on the table, not to give you the answer key, but to train the muscle that finds answers under pressure.Each chapter is a short, vivid scene followed by the tug of war it creates in your mind. You step onto the footbr...

Scambusters! is a working manual senior citizens can use to defend themselves against the most common scams aimed at the elderly. It provides readers with a comprehensive approach to identifying scams in the making, and shows them specific prevention tools and how to use them.Inside, you'll find step-by-step instructions, helpful anecdotes, and references to dozens of consumer organizationals and government agencies devoted to thwarting swindlers. Weather buying mutual funds, repai...

This book describes the heritage and development of the entire Piper Cherokee family; its safety and ownership characteristics; internal and external details; and a range of special variants from STOL modifications and new engines to seaplanes and tailwheel conversions. The hugely successful Piper PA-28 was produced and sold as a direct competitor to the Cessna 172. Initially produced with a rectangular wing planform and fixed undercarriage, it was available with installed powers ranging f...

Moving effortlessly from Virginia to Italy and beyond, Ron Smith’s new volume responds with a range of emotions from humor to horror and with a variety of forms from the sonnet to visually expressive organic shapes. The book’s forty-three pieces gather themselves into three flights that hover above and touch down among the politics of memory and the psychology of beauty. With inspiration drawn from memoir, myth, history, fiction, and the visual arts, That Beauty in the Trees prese...

In Two Up Down Under, Ron and Jim enjoy a road trip around Canberra and the Riverina in Jim’s 50-year old VW Kombi, Miss October. As well as the journey, the story of Miss October is told, and, as would be expected, there are over 190 photos mostly in colour as there is a focus on both flying and on vintage aircraft in Australia.Ron Smith has had a long and varied association with aviation. He is an aerospace engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, ex-Chairman of the R...

The Cessna 172 is unquestionably the world's most successful light aircraft. More than 43,000 have been built since 1956, and the type is in service all over the world. For many, it defines the experience of cross-country flying with family and friends. This small volume traces the origins of the Cessna 172 and highlights the features that have made it so successful. Comprehensively illustrated, with many previously unpublished photographs, the book includes a close-up look at an individua...