Aviation History

Undaunted Valor is the firsthand account of helicopter pilot, Colonel Dan Cory as he flies combat missions in the jungles of Vietnam. From dodging enemy ground fire and RPGs, to constant mortar and rocket attacks on his base, Colonel Cory stared down the enemy to bring his fellow soldiers’ home.

Catkiller 3-2 provides unique insights into the role of the tactical air controller, airborne (TACA) in I Corps as seen through the eyes of one of the pilots who flew low-flying, unarmed, single-engine aircraft in support of marine ground units during the Vietnam War. When Gen. William Westmoreland changed the marines' role in I Corps into a combat one, the Marines found themselves in need of more fixed wing aircraft to handle the TACA missions.

By the author of Ashes Under Water, here is one of the great untold stories of World War II. The Hidden Hindenburg at last reveals the cause of aviation's most famous disaster and the duplicity that kept the truth from coming to light for three generations. It also finally catches up with a German legend who misled the world about the Hindenburg to bury his own Nazi connections.

This book provides young listeners with exciting information on the most modern US military aircraft.

An award-winning, beautifully written story, heartbreaking at times, about a young American who flew over the treacherous skies of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, as depicted in the Masters of the Air TV series from the book by Donald L. Miller. Finding Bomb Boogie is a book many cannot put down. Informative, riveting, and suspense-driven as the author searches for her father’s World War II story long after he has passed away—finally bringing understanding, acceptance, and closure to a complicated but loving relationship many decades later. This is the story of a quiet, young ...

On July 25, 2000, a Concorde, the world's fastest passenger plane, was taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris when it suddenly burst into flames. An airliner capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound, the Concorde had completed 25 years of successful flights, whisking wealthy passengers - from diplomats to rock stars to corporate titans - between continents on brief and glamorous flights. Yet on this fateful day, the chartered Concorde jet, en route to America, crashed and killed all 109 passengers and crew onboard and four people on the ground.

Lincoln Beachey is the Forgotten Father of Aerobatics, who, in 1911-1915, invented 'trick flying', who had a fiancee in scores of American cities, who was called 'the eighth wonder of the world', whose iconoclastic story will rewrite a bit of American history. Stunning!

From an elite Navy rescue swimmer comes this insider perspective on what it takes to survive some of the most dangerous situations imaginable—and how the lessons learned can help overcome other momentous challenges.

September 1962: On a moonless night over the raging Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from land, the engines of Flying Tiger flight 923 to Germany burst into flames, one by one. Pilot John Murray didn't have long before the plane crashed headlong into the 20-foot waves at 120 mph. As the four flight attendants donned life vests, collected sharp objects, and explained how to brace for the ferocious impact, 68 passengers clung to their seats. They all expected to die.

Sunday, December 7, 1941, dawned clear and bright over the Pacific....

But for the Dauntless dive-bomber crews of the USS Enterprise returning to their home base on Oahu, it was a morning from hell. Flying directly into the Japanese ambush at Pearl Harbor, they lost a third of their squadron and witnessed the heart of America's Navy broken and smoldering on the oil-slicked waters below.

Contemporary Adult Nonfiction history of women in aviation with International appeal for readers interested in women pilots and female astronaut history. Packed with easy-to-read, true stories of historic International women aviators and female astronauts of the world. Historic female pilots and women astronauts from America, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, and Russia. Illustrated with over 110 unique photographs of International women aviators and female space history makers in a pictorial format. Filled with powerful and ...

The tiny ex-mercenary company Alto Group struggled to get recognition for their six engine heavy transport aircraft (built to an "acquired" design) at their Northern Michigan factory by delivering F4F Wildcat fighters and two M-3 Stuart tanks to Wake Island after December 7th. Answering a call from a man they only met once, they mount a new mission to give logistical support to battered remnants of USAAF Far Eastern forces that have retreated to Australia and New Guinea.Using close air support tricks they learned fighting in South America in the Gran Chao War, they support the troops ...

Nearly everything people know about airships is wrong. Few realize that prior to the Hindenburg disaster airships transported passengers without a single casualty for more than twenty years, a record unmatched by any other form of transportation. When Giants Ruled the Sky tells the true but little-known story of the USS Macon (ZRS-5), the world's largest, most expensive, and most technologically advanced airship of her day, and the four men responsible for conceiving, designing, building, and flying her.

U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is a central character in the movie Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks. In his classic 1970 memoir, Powers reveals the full story behind what happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After his U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down, Powers was captured on May 1, 1960 and endured 61 days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a 10-year sentence.

Here is a mystery. During the course of our lives we sometimes encounter occurrences or situations that defy rational explanation. Some of us are quick to ascribe supernatural influence, others strive to apply reason and logic. `The Black Albatros’ is a short story based on such an incident. It was related to the author by a retired RAF Squadron Leader in the mid 1960’s who had served in the Great War. The fictional characters portrayed in `The Black Albatros’ will be familiar to readers who have read the author’s debut novel `1918 Blue Skies Aloft.’ The sequence of events are as ...

This book encourages and inspires young women to explore new opportunities in air and space. Packed with inspiring words, stories, and photographs from International trailblazing women in the worldwide air and space industry.

Sam Kleiner’s The Flying Tigers uncovers the hidden story of the group of young American men and women who crossed the Pacific before Pearl Harbor to risk their lives defending China. Led by legendary army pilot Claire Chennault, these men left behind an America still at peace in the summer of 1941 using false identities to travel across the Pacific to a run-down airbase in the jungles of Burma.

In 1929, a 22-year-old maverick named Frank Whittle - a self-taught aeronautical obsessive and risk-takingly brilliant RAF pilot - presented a blueprint for a revolutionary, jet-powered aircraft engine to the Air Ministry. His idea had the potential to change the course of history, but it was summarily rejected. In this meticulously researched biography, Duncan Campbell-Smith charts Whittle's stoic efforts to build his jet engine in the interwar years.

This is a true story about a man who was passionate about airplanes—flying them, designing them and building them. His innovative designs and creative vision were so much a part of aviation history that his breakthrough biplane design, the Staggerwing, shown on the cover of this book, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Ted Wells not only designed the Staggerwing, but also the Bonanza and many other extremely popular and enduring commercial and military aircraft. Beech Aircraft, the company he co-founded with Walter and Olive Ann Beech...

August, 1944... World War Two rages across Europe and the South Pacific, far from the quiet, small-town world of Winslow, Arizona, where seventeen-year-old, aviation-crazy Jimmy “Flyboy” Doyle complains that “nothing ever happens around here, damn it.” Until...one night at the Winslow airport... Nazi Abwehr agents kidnap rocket pioneer Professor Robert Goddard and—by sheer accident—Flyboy too, and whisk them down to South America, where Adolf Hitler’s ultra-top-secret Amerika Projekt is in full swing off the coastline of French Guiana on the notorious penal colony, “...