Military Aviation

The 1914-18 conflict narrated through the voices of the men whose combat was in the air. The empty chairs belonged, all too briefly, to the doomed young First World War airmen who failed to return from the terrifying daily aerial combats above the trenches of the Western Front. The edict of their commander in chief was the missing aviators were to be immediately replaced. Before the new faces could arrive, the departed men's vacant seats at the dinner table were sometimes poignantly occupied by their caps and boots, placed there in a sad ritual by their surviving colleagues.

Graham Pitchfork has built on these reminiscences to trace the roles of Beaufighter squadrons spread across all the theaters of World War Two operations. From home bases, through north-west Europe, North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean to the far Far East and south-west Pacific, the Beaufighter served far and wide as did the crews of the RAF, RAAF, SAAF, and New Zealand and Canadian squadrons. All are covered in this quite unique book to be savored by all those interested in the war in the air from 1939-1945.

This is the story of a British deterrent. Much has been written about the V-bombers—the Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan—but virtually nothing has been said about their strategic nuclear strike role. How would Britain's small force of subsonic bombers have retaliated following a Soviet attack, and would they have succeeded? This book is the product of seven years of research by Dr. Tony Redding.

At the height of World War II, a B-24 Liberator bomber vanished with its crew while on a training mission over upstate New York. The final hours and ultimate resting place of pilot Keith Ponder and seven other US aviators aboard the plane remain mysteries to this day. The tale is at once a compelling instance of loss on the World War II American home front and a more extensive, largely unreported history.

After five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, naval aviator John McCain returned home a changed man. Regaining his health and flight-eligibility status, he resumed his military career, commanding carrier pilots and serving as the navy’s liaison to what is sometimes ironically called the world’s most exclusive club, the United States Senate. Accompanying Senators John Tower and Henry “Scoop” Jackson on international trips, McCain began his political education in the company of two masters, leaders whose standards he would strive to maintain upon his election to the U.S. Congress.

This is the autobiography of Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas CBE, DSO, DFC, who was one of the most distinguished fighter pilots of World War II. He writes of his wartime experiences, and particularly of his period as Squadron Leader and Wing Commander and his involvement in the Battle of Britain.

You are with the author when he ejects from his burning Navy jet onto a karst ridge near Hanoi. What follows in this meticulously researched memoir is an account of one of the most implausible and heroic rescues of the air-war - and the aftermath. The events immediately following his rescue carry the author to a secret base in Laos and then to a makeshift hospital in Saigon. The larger story, however, is of the author’s complex relationship with Vietnam. It begins in Saigon, where he completes high school and comes to love the Vietnamese people.

Anthony Fokker: The Flying Dutchman Who Shaped American Aviation tells the larger-than-life true story of maverick pilot and aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker. Fokker came from an affluent Dutch family. Despite not receiving a traditional education, he stumbled his way into aviation as a young stunt pilot in Germany in 1910. He survived a series of spectacular crashes and rose to fame. A combination of industrial espionage, luck, and deception then propelled him to become Germany's leading WWI aircraft manufacturer. When the German Revolution swept the country, Fokker made a spectacular escape to the US.

This book is Volume 2 of my memoir and is edited for Large Print and audiobook format. Memoir of an Aviator – My Journey from factory worker to Airline Captain, Volume 2: Airline Pilot is the description of the second half of my professional life and contains details of my commercial pilot training, airline training, furloughs, new jobs, and eventually reaching my goals. Fly with me as I describe the details that you won't get in other memoirs. I'll tell you about the nuts and bolts of flight training and airline flying. Join me as I meet the love of my life and achieve happiness and ...

In 100 Years of Air Power and Aviation, Robin Higham, regarded by many as the dean of aviation historians, presents a critical history of British, American, Soviet, German, Italian, French, Japanese, and Israeli aviation. He moves easily from theory to concrete example and back again, in the process discussing the social, economic, and political components of air power, the major wars and police actions in which aircraft have been employed, the composition of air forces, and the creation of aviation industries.

Chris Burwell charts one man's career in aviation from joining the RAF in 1969 aged eighteen, to having responsibility for training pilots for the world's major airlines nearly fifty years later. After training at RAF Cranwell and RAF Valley and a tour as a flying instructor on Jet Provosts, he joined the Harrier Force, flying on front-line squadrons in the United Kingdom and Germany during the Cold War and as an instructor on the Harrier Conversion Unit.

Ready or Not was written by J. Francis Angier and is a memoir of his life and flying career — highlighted by his shoot-down and imprisonment in Nazi Germany. His narrative encompasses his early interest in aviation, (he soloed at age 15) and his upbringing on a Vermont farm during the Depression which prepared him for the rigors of flying in combat and the hardship of his captivity.

On February 21, 1943, Pan American Airways' celebrated seaplane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from New York's Marine Air Terminal and island-hopped its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Arriving at Lisbon the following evening, it crashed in the Tagus River, killing twenty-four of its thirty-nine passengers and crew. Americans in a World at War traces the backstories of seven worldly Americans aboard that plane, their personal histories, their politics, and the paths that led them toward war.

Aviation Trivia Hero is a book of 101 questions and fun facts on space and air history and trivia. Enjoy this book on a family fun night, game night, or car ride, or use it to review before your local pub trivia night.

A Nazi's Nazi, SS Generalleutnant von Bassenheim has no intention of surrendering. And Lieutenant Commander Atsugi, an Imperial pilot with nothing left to live for, wants nothing less than total revenge. With Axis powers facing defeat, the two men set out on a suicide mission in a submarine aircraft carrier with two nuclear weapons on board and two Seiran fighters destined to drop their loads on American cities. In a cat-and-mouse game spanning the globe, one OSS officer and a team of naval aviators and ship commanders hunt the rogue submarine.

Everett Ross often feels like a fish out of water, an ex-Texas Ranger who traded his horse and six-gun for the cockpit of a pursuit aircraft in the British Royal Flying Corps. Through his inimitable West Texas narrative, Ross thrills the reader with a riveting tale of authentic aerial combat in the skies above the stalemated trenches of World War I.

When a girl is kidnapped, Colt has one path: Get her back. Talia "Colt" Levin never expected a routine flight to turn into a high-stakes rescue mission. But when a scared little girl leaves behind a teddy bear—and her supposed father vanishes without a word—Colt's instincts scream that something is wrong. What starts as a gut feeling quickly escalates into a dangerous game of cat and mouse at a quiet airport, where a group of criminals have far bigger plans than just one kidnapped child. With time running out and no backup in sight, Colt will have to rely on her skills, her wits, and a ...

Between 1918 and 1955, 60 airmen were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and Two Bars. In this book, recorded for the first time together are the mini-biographies of those 60 along with the citations that accompanied their awards, or in some cases the recommendations for them. As the listener will discover, the range of airmen who received the DFC and Two Bars cover most of the ambit of World War II operations, be they fighter pilots, bomber pilots, night-fighter aircrew, aircrew navigators, engineers, etc, or reconnaissance pilots

Twenty Incredible Military Aviation Stories. There I was as my arm jerked forward, and a new sensation filled my mind—panic. Thoughts filled my head quickly: today I'm going to die, this is it, this airplane is going to blow up any second, we are sitting on thousands of pounds of fuel (55,000 to be exact), GET OUT! Imagine flying 500 knots just above the trees when the left engine fire light suddenly comes on. Pilots of Valor takes you inside the cockpit of a high-performance military aircraft when everything starts to go wrong, seriously wrong. We invite you inside the world of a ...

Uniting against the Reich: The American Air War in Europe addresses how the United States swiftly reversed its air war against the Axis powers by reevaluating both individual agency and the structural elements that impeded the US from taking the lead in the European Theater. Luke W. Truxal argues that the appointment of General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander incorporated various air commands under a single authority, which allowed them to unify their efforts against a specific strategic objective.