The autobiography of the Fairey Aviation test pilot and Naval fighter pilot who broke the World Air Speed Record in 1956.This autobiography of Peter Twiss, the man who flew 1000mph for the first time in history, tells the story of the record-breaking Fairey Delta. It describes the vast organization necessary for the record bid, the political lobbying, and the almost intolerable tension when the flights failed.Faster Than the Sun is also a compelling ...

From yesteryear's flying aces to today's top guns...Veteran anthologist Jon E. Lewis has assembled firsthand accounts from all the great military campaigns of aerial warfare, including World Wars I and II, the Spanish Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, the Gulf, and Bosnia. Page after exciting page of this singular collection brings into vivid play the exploits of such legendary pilots as Manfred von Richtofen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Douglas Bader, and...

When the China Clipper shattered aviation records on its maiden six-day flight from California to the Orient in 1935, the flying boat became an instant celebrity. This lively history by Robert Gandt traces the development of the great flying boats as both a triumph of technology and a stirring human drama. He examines the political, military, and economic forces that drove its development and explains the aeronautical advances that made the aircraft possible. To fully document the story he...

 The B-52 is the longest serving and most versatile of the United States Air Force's combat aircraft. The Stratofortress entered active service in 1955 and is scheduled to continue as part of the air force's inventory through 2040. The jet-powered bomber was a mainstay of America's Cold War nuclear-deterrent strategy, providing air power that balanced the land and sea military forces. The massive plane also served as the launch platform for the experimental X-15 hypersonic rocket a...

The second of two books on the Navy's Phantom II MiG killers of the Vietnam War, this book covers the numerous actions fought out over North Vietnam during the Linebacker I and II operations of 1972-73.No fewer than 17 MiGs were downed during this period, five of them by the Navy's sole aces of the conflict, Lts Randy Cunningham and Willie Driscoll of VF-96. Drawing on primary sources such as surviving Phantom II aircrew and official navy documentation, the author ...

This book tells the story of the 26 US Navy Squadrons, most of which were carrier based, and the six Marine Corps F-4 squadrons that flew combat missions against the North Koreans.Drawing from a vast repository of personal interviews with F-4 pilots, the author paints a harrowing picture of the deadly combat of this often forgotten air war. Included in this volume is the story of Lt Guy Bordelon, the US Navy's sole ace of the Korean War, who flew an F4U-5N night-fi...

A thorough history of the RAF Bomber Command attack on the German city during World War II, by the author of The First Day on the Somme.This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. Author Martin Middlebrook sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and aims of the British bombing leaders, and the compositi...

The history of WWI aviation is a rich and varied story marked by the evolution of aircraft from slow moving, fragile, and unreliable powered kites, into quick, agile, sturdy fighter craft. At the same time there emerged a new kind of 'soldier', the fighter pilots whose individual cunning and bravery became crucial in the fight for control of the air. Dog-fight traces this rapid technological development alongside the strategy and planning of commanders and front-line airmen as they adapted...

The most produced Japanese bomber of the war, the G4M saw action on every front from the first day of the Pacific conflict through to VJ-Day.The 'Betty's' very long range made it a key weapon during the opening year of the war. However, to achieve this, the aircraft was built with very little protective armour for its crew or fuel tanks, and Allied pilots soon exposed its extreme vulnerability.In the first in a series of volumes examining the key Japanese a...

This compelling book provides the first global history of the evolution of combined operations since Antiquity. Beginning with amphibious warfare in the ancient world of the Romans, Vikings, and Mongols, Jeremy Black advances through the Gunpowder Revolution, the rise of maritime empires and the formation of nation-states, the early Industrial Revolution and the adaptation of modern technology to warfare, the twentieth-century world wars, the Cold War, and concluding with the modern age of...

In the early 1960s, Sukhoi's OKB "skunk works" had a very capable aviation designer, highly interested in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flying machines. Most of the world's aviation companies had pretty much given up on VTOLs. This was pre-computer days and landing a VTOL manually proved extremely difficult. Sukhoi OKB chief designer, R.G. Martirosov's "Barrage-1" shape was to be very different from all other previous VTOLs. Its radical rethinking design resulted in some twenty inven...

This is the story of the USS Wolverine and the USS Sable, two Great Lakes excursion ships converted for aircraft carrier training during WWII. Through the duration of the war, the United States Navy qualified 17,800 pilots for aircraft carrier operation. Training the pilots on either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean would have exposed the training ships to the danger of submarine attack, while requiring the escort of fighting ships that were needed elsewhere. It would also have involved a...