Told in anecdotal form, Vulture\s Row tells a fascinating story about an important period covering nearly one half of the entire history of U.S. naval aviation. "Vulture\s Row" is an area dubbed by naval flyers, on the island structure of an aircraft carrier where pilots who aren\t flying can overlook carrier launchings and recoveries on the deck below. \nThis new book by acclaimed author Paul Gillcrist is a series of true stories about the U.S. Navy carrier aviation from the perspective of a Navy pilot who spent thirty-three years directly involved in that exciting profession. The book begins with a series of vignettes in the period of the mid-1950s when the U.S. Navy introduced swept wing, jet-powered fighters into the aircraft carrier navy, flying from straight-deck carriers whose flight decks were made of teak wood.\nThe thread of stories follows the author\s career in chronological sequence, in various venues throughout the Navy. There are accounts from his first carrier deployment to the western Pacific, followed by events as a weapons delivery instructor at the predecessor to TOPGUN in El Centro, California. Some of his experiences as a Navy pilot are recorded in a section about Patuxent River, Maryland, the Navy\s test center. Additional episodes include an unforgettable wing-walking flight. flying Japanese Zeros in the movie TORA!TORA!TORA! and the author\s subsequent tour of duty in Pentagon conducting proficiency flights from our nation\s capital.\nThere are also accounts of combat missions over Vietnam and the author\s experiences in both wing commander jobs, flying the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat. The last story is about his two flights, as a fifty-two year old Admiral, in the controversial F-20 Tigershark. These vignettes combine humor, hair-raising excitement and tragedy.\nRear Admiral Paul T. Gillcrist, a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, served also as a test pilot and weapons delivery instructor, and actively flew from sixteen aircraft carriers for over twenty-seven years. The author writes with authority as a former fighter squadron commanding officer who recorded 167 combat missions over Vietnam flying the F-8 Crusader. Subsequently, he commanded a carrier air wing and finally served, the rank of Rear Admiral, as the wing commander for all pacific Fleet fighter squadrons. His pilot\s logbook includes over 6,000 hours, in seventy-one different types of aircraft from 1952 to 1981. He retired in 1985 as Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations(air Warfare). He is also the author of TOMCAT!The Grumman F-14 Story, and CRUSADER! Last of the Gunfighters(both titles are available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.).

This volume examines the connection between culture and defence by providing an inside look at Brazil's aerospace strategies. Brazil is becoming increasingly important geopolitically, and several studies have sought to further understanding of this new position in the international arena. This volume aims to provide a better understanding of the Brazilian nation, its security dilemmas, and how the country seeks to develop its defence training process and improve its professional military education. Organised into two parts, the chapters offer academic dialogues on several aspects of this topic, including public politics and the law, joint operations, human factors and the government interchanges with industry. The first section analyses Brazilian defence policy and strategy, discussing different aspects of aerospace power and Brazilian security perspectives. Chapters discuss the relationship between Brazil and the United States, which blend aspects of the generation of knowledge, science, technology and innovation, and point to economic issues and the Defence Industrial Base. Specific implications of the Brazilian air space, compared with Europe and the United States, also are exposed. In addition, a vision of cyberspace implications for the national power, a present-day question for the entire planet, is also presented. Thereafter, the second section looks at specific aspects of professional military education and explains the Brazilian approach to strengthening its aerospace power. This includes military education and performance, interdisciplinary studies, working jointly, multivariate analysis and cases. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, defence studies, gender issues, crises management and decision making, Latin American politics and International Relations in general.

The pilot-operated Bachem Ba 349 "Natter" ("Adder") was one of several unexpected new weapons Germany was seeking to perfect for a more effective defense against Allied heavy bombers. The idea of the ground-to-air missile to slow down, if not stop, attacking aircraft was one of the greatest developments to come out of World War II, and Germany led the field. David Myhra has taken 240 photographs and illustrations from his collection and presents the world's first defense interceptor missile - the manned Ba 349 "Natter."

This operational history of the XX (20th) Bomber Command and its combat missions from India and China in 1944 and 1945 traces the development of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress program and the Allied plans to stage long-range bombers through China for strikes against Japan's strategic industries. Each of the 49 combat missions flown by the XX Bomber Command from India and China is examined, producing the first detailed history of the B-29 campaign flown from these countries. The book is written almost exclusively from primary source material-World War II documents, crew member memoirs, and personal interviews. Special sections within the book examine issues related to flying across the "Hump" between India and China; General Curtis LeMay's reorganization of B-29 operations; and the night fighter defense of the B-29 forward airfields in China.

This first volume of Solomons Air War chronicles aerial warfare in the opening phase of the war in the Solomons Islands theatre, being the critical period of August-September 1942. After occupying the Solomon Islands capital of Tulagi with ease in May 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced building an airfield on the adjacent island of Guadalcanal. The indispensable airfield was over 600 miles distant from their main base of Rabaul and promised to extend the reach of their aircraft into the Allied occupied island chains of Fiji, the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. Much was at stake and the airfield would be held at all costs. Then, in early August 1942 a bold American invasion of both Tulagi and Guadalcanal caught the IJN completely off guard. Nevertheless, Japanese air power responded swiftly and in some cases desperately. So began the knife-edge struggle for Guadalcanal. An ever-increasing variety and number of IJN units was poured into the struggle, met initially with USN carrier-based Wildcats backed up by SBD Dauntless dive-bombers and the new TBF torpedo bomber. These were soon joined by USAAF fighters operating from the newly operational Henderson Field. From late August, Japanese carriers entered the fight, adding more complexity to the intense and frenzied air battles. For the first time belligerents are closely matched and the rationale of the IJN’s sometimes erratic response is explained. The full extent of both Japanese and US involvement is outlined to a level of detail never before presented.

This is the first comprehensive, well-illustrated documentation on the Do 335, one of the milestones in German aviation history. The Do 335 was developed by Dornier as a heavy fighter in 1943. One of the last high-performance piston-engined aircraft designed, the Do 335 was powered by tandem fore-aft engines, a concept proven in numerous Dornier flying boats. As a result of this configuration, drag was reduced to little more than that of a single-engined aircraft, enabling the Do 335 to achieve very high speeds. The Do 335 represented the apex of propeller-driven aircraft in the Second World War.

These are pictorial studies of the Allied air offensive that defeated Japanese air forces in the vast Pacific Ocean region, destroyed Japan's navy and its supply lines, and finally devastated the war making potential of the Japanese homeland. The photos come from official archives as well as from the private collections of veterans. The captions reflect painstaking research to supply date, place, and units engaged.

This new book covers the 388th TFW; a Composite Wing based at Korat RTAFB, Thailand, consisting of fighters, Wild Weasel aircraft, airborne jamming aircraft and AWACS aircraft. The author flew 133 combat missions in Southeast Asia in 1972, and was assigned to the 469th TFS, one of the two F-4E squadrons of the 388th TFW. The book discusses in detail the Wing, the Squadrons and the aircraft they flew: the F-4. F-105G Wild Weasel, A-7D, EB-66, EC-121, and C-130. Also covered are the mission types, as well as operations of the Wing during the Linebacker Campaign over North Vietnam. Narratives of all the 388th MiG kills and aircraft losses during 1972 are included. The book contains over 170 color and black and white photographs taken by the author, as well as theatre maps. A selection of official and unofficial flight suit patches is also included. Don Logan is also the author of Rockwell B-1B: SACs Last Bomber, and Northrops T-38 Talon: A Pictorial History(both titles are available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.).

Covers Hs 126, Bf 110, Me 262, Ju 88, Bf 109, Bv 141, Fw 189 and others.

While the military use of drones has been the subject of much scrutiny, the use of drones for humanitarian purposes has so far received little attention. As the starting point for this study, it is argued that the prospect of using drones for humanitarian and other life-saving activities has produced an alternative discourse on drones, dedicated to developing and publicizing the endless possibilities that drones have for "doing good". Furthermore, it is suggested that the Good Drone narrative has been appropriated back into the drone warfare discourse, as a strategy to make war "more human". This book explores the role of the Good Drone as an organizing narrative for political projects, technology development and humanitarian action. Its contribution to the debate is to take stock of the multiple logics and rationales according to which drones are "good", with a primary objective to initiate a critical conversation about the political currency of "good". This study recognizes the many possibilities for the use of drones and takes these possibilities seriously by critically examining the difference the drones' functionalities can make, but also what difference the presence of drones themselves - as unmanned and flying objects - make. Discussed and analysed are the implications for the drone industry, user communities, and the areas of crisis where drones are deployed.

Contributing to the debate about the role of airpower in guerrilla warfare, this book evaluates the development of the Rhodesian Air Force during the Second Chimurenga or Bush War (1966-1979). Airpower in irregular conflict is primarily effective at the tactical level because guerrilla warfare is not a purely military conflict. The Rhodesian Air Force was deployed in a war-winning versus a supporting role as a result of the shortage of manpower to deal with insurgency, and almost all units of the Rhodesian Security Forces depended on its tactical effectiveness. Technical challenges faced by the Air Force, combined with the rate of guerrilla infiltration and the misuse of airpower to bomb guerrilla bases in neighboring countries-some of them filled with untrained civilians-largely negated the success of airpower.

Beating its biplane rivals in a 1936 Reich Air Ministry design competition, the Arado Ar 196 provided the Kriegsmarine with possibly the best shipborne reconnaissance seaplane of World War II. Replacing the Heinkel He 60 biplane as the standard catapult-launched floatplane embarked on the Kriegsmarine's capital ships, the Ar 196 flew an assortment of combat missions during World War II, including coastal patrol, submarine hunting, light bombing, general reconnaissance and convoy escort sorties. The first vessel to take its Ar 196A-1s to sea was the pocket battleship Graf Spee, which embarked two in the autumn of 1939. The battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz could carry six Arados each, the battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst four and smaller pocket battleships and cruisers two. Shore-based aircraft were also operated from coastal ports on the Channel, Baltic, North Sea and Bay of Biscay coasts, as well as in the Balkans and Mediterranean. In this title, supported by an excellent selection of photographs and full-colour illustrations, Peter de Jong explores the history of the Arado Ar 196, detailing their development and assessing the combat capabilities of one of the last fighting seaplanes.

During the Great War, 1914-1918, New Zealanders were keen participants in the new field of military aviation. Close to 850 men, and a small number of women, from the Empire's southernmost dominion sought positions in the British and Australian air services. Drawing on extensive archival material from New Zealand, Australia and Britain, historian Dr Adam Claasen explores New Zealand's reluctance to embrace military aviation, the challenges facing the establishment of local flying schools and the journey undertaken by the New Zealanders from their antipodean farms and towns to the battlefields of the Great War. In spite of their modest numbers the New Zealanders' wartime experiences were incredibly varied. Across the conflict, New Zealand aviators could be found flying above the sands of the Middle East and Mesopotamia, the grey waters of the North Sea , the jungles of East Africa, the sprawling metropolis of London and the rolling hills of northern France and Belgium. Flying the open cockpit wood-and-wire biplanes of the Great War, New Zealanders undertook reconnaissance sorties, carried out bombing raids, photographed enemy entrenchments, defended England from German airships, strafed artillery emplacements and engaged enemy fighters. By the time the war ended many had been killed, others highly decorated, some elevated to `ace' status and a handful occupied positions of considerable command. This book tells their unique and extraordinary untold story.

With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Kiffin Yates Rockwell of Asheville, North Carolina, volunteered to fight for France. Initially serving with the French Foreign Legion as a soldier in the trenches, he soon became a founding member of the Lafayette Escadrille, a squadron made up mostly of American volunteer pilots who served under the French flag before the U.S. entered the war. On May 19, 1916, he earned the distinction of being the first American pilot of the war to shoot down a German plane. He was killed during aerial combat on September 23, 1916, at age 24. This book covers Rockwell's early life and military service with the Lafayette Escadrille, the first ever American air combat unit and the precursor to the U.S. Air Force.

Bill Lambert: World War I Flying Ace is a detailed scholarly biography of a World War I pilot who ""lived at the edge of greatness, but could never get there."" From late March to mid-August 1918, William C. Lambert from Ironton, Ohio, flew as a fighter pilot for the R.A.F. in World War I. A surprising number of Americans went to Canada and joined the British flying services. Unfortunately, for the most part, their life stories have never been told. Several of them went on to have distinguished records. Unbeknownst to anyone, when Lambert left the war his twenty-two victories were the largest total among any American pilot in the war. By the Armistice, Lambert's total would be surpassed by Eddie Rickenbacker, the former race car driver from Columbus, Ohio, with twenty-six victories. Lambert survived the war and lived into his eighties; however, until late in life, he was unwilling to take advantage of his war record to achieve public acclaim. This book is an examination of the entire life of a distinct individual who took part in a war that destroyed individuality and served to define him for the rest of his life.

One of the true land-marks of flight, this book covers its limited yet devastating use during WWII.

A thrilling tale of incredible courage and resilience, a true wartime story of William Ash. The Cooler King is at once uplifting and inspirational, and stands as a testament to the durability of decent values and the invincible spirit of liberty. The Cooler King tells the astonishing story of William Ash, an American flyer brought up in Depression-hit Texas, who after being shot down in his Spitfire over France in early 1942 spent the rest of the war defying the Nazis by striving to escape from every prisoner of war camp in which he was incarcerated. Alongside William Ash is a cast of fascinating characters, including Douglas Bader, Roger Bushell, who would go on to lead the Great Escape, and Paddy Barthropp, a dashing Battle of Britain pilot who despite his very different background became Ash's best friend and shared many of his adventures. Using contemporary documents and interviews with Ash's comrades, Patrick Bishop vividly recreates the multiple escape attempts, while also examining the P.O.W. experience and analysing the passion that drove some prisoners to risk death in repeated bids for freedom.

Second World War fighter pilot Eric Carter is one of only four surviving members of a secret mission, code-named 'Force Benedict'. Sanctioned by Winston Churchill in 1941 Force Benedict was dispatched to defend Murmansk, the USSR's only port not under Nazi occupation. If Murmansk fell, Soviet resistance against the Nazis would be hard to sustain and Hitler would be able to turn all his forces on Britain...Force Benedict was under the command of New Zealand-born RAF Wing Commander Henry Neville Gynes Ramsbottom-Isherwood, who led two squadrons of Hurricane fighters, pilots and ground crew which were shipped to Russia in total secrecy on the first ever Arctic Convoy. They were told to defend Murmansk against the Germans 'at all costs'. 'We all reckoned the government thought we'd never survive' - but Eric Carter did, and was threatened with Court Martial if he talked about where he'd been or what he'd done. Now he reveals his experiences of seventy years ago in the hell on earth that was Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. It will also include previously unseen photos and documents, as well as exploring - for the first time - other intriguing aspects of Force Benedict.

The Israel Air Force (IAF) has accumulated as much battle experience as any air force in the world during the post-Second World War era, and it has recorded many outstanding accomplishments throughout a seemingly endless string of interstate wars, asymmetrical wars, counterinsurgency campaigns, and special operations. This book examines the IAF's experience in the ArabIsraeli conflict from the establishment of Israel in 1948 to the present day. It analyses this experience through the prisms of manoeuvre warfare, attrition warfare, counterinsurgency warfare, special operations, and humanitarian operations. The book reviews the IAF's performance in such wars as the 1967 Six-Day War, the 196970 War of Attrition, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and the 20089 Gaza War. The book also scrutinizes the IAF's participation in major counterinsurgency campaigns and special operations, traces the air force's experience with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have occupied a very prominent place in air operations since the 1982 Lebanon War, and chronicles its experience with anti-aircraft defences and satellites. Up-to-date information on the IAF's bases, squadrons, and other infrastructure is provided as well. The book is based on personal visits to the IAF over the past few years, during which the author had the opportunity to tour bases, listen to lectures and briefings, and speak with numerous retired, reserve, and active duty officers.

This study explains how Westland dominated British helicopter production and why government funding and support failed to generate competitive "all-British" alternatives. In doing so, the book evaluates broader historiographic assumptions about the purported "failure" of british aircraft procurement during the early post-war period and considers the scope and limitations of licensed production as a government-mandated procurement strategy.

India is growing into one of Asia's most important military powers. Its defence budget has more than doubled in the past decade, and it imports more arms than anyone else in the world. But India is still seen as a land power focused on long, disputed and militarised borders with Pakistan and China rather than the global military force it was in the first half of the twentieth century under British rule. Is this changing? India is acquiring increasing numbers of key platforms - aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, refuelling tankers and transport aircraft - that are extending its reach to the Indian Ocean littoral and beyond. But most accounts of this build-up have been impressionistic and partial. Indian Power Projection assesses the strength, reach and purposes of India's maturing capabilities. It offers a systematic assessment of India's ability to conduct long-range airstrikes from land and sea, transport and convey airborne and amphibious forces, and develop the institutional and material enablers that turn platforms into capabilities. It draws extensively on the lessons of modern expeditionary operations, and considers how India's growing interests might shape where and how it uses these evolving capabilities in the future. This study finds that Indian power projection is in a nascent stage: limited in number, primarily of use against much-weaker adversaries, and deficient in some key supporting capabilities. India's defence posture will continue to be shaped by local threats, rather than distant interests. Indian leaders remain uncomfortable with talk of military intervention and expeditionary warfare, associating these with colonial and superpower excess. But as the country's power, interests and capabilities all grow, it is likely that India will once more find itself using military force beyond its land borders.

Trained as a photo reconnaissance unit, the U.S. Marine Observation Squadron 251 ended up serving as a fighter squadron for the duration of World War II, shooting down 32 Japanese aircraft. They earned several awards for outstanding performance, including the Presidential Unit Citation. This book is the first to cover the history of the VMO-251, one of the Marine Corps' longest-serving squadrons. The author traces their operations from the unit's activation on December 1, 1941, through Guadalcanal, the reduction of Rabaul and their missions over the Philippines in 1945.

This revised and expanded second edition covers USN and USMC squadrons that operated the Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber as the PB4Y-1 in the Pacific from early 1943 through September 1944 in the Central Pacific. Combat air crews consisted of eleven young men typically ages 18 to 26 led by a patrol plane commander in his early to mid-twenties. They flew alone on single-plane patrols often lasting ten or more hours. Alone on patrol there were no witnesses when an aircraft failed to return to base; they simply vanished, leaving little if any clues about their fate. Other aircrews sent to look for the missing would occasionally spot a deflated life raft floating or dye marker spreading across the waterevidence marking where a four-engine bomber and its crew had gone down.

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was the most-produced American supersonic military jet with 5,195 aircraft being produced. By any standards the F-4 has been incredibly successful, used not only by the USAF and US Navy but many air forces around the world including Germany, Israel, Turkey and Japan. The F-4 was designed as a long-range fighter interceptor and fighter bomber, excellent in all roles assigned to it. The Phantom has performed leading roles in multiple conflicts around the world from the Vietnam War through to the Gulf War. Although the F-4 left US service in 1996 it has continued in service with other air forces, only just being retired in 2020 from the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force. This new title in Pen & Sword's highly successful Flight Craft series covers the development and operational use of the F-4 Phantom II and brings to life the variety of colour schemes and markings applied by many of the multiple air arms that have operated the Phantom around the world by including quality colour profiles. Multiple model projects are included covering significant variants of the F-4 like the F-4B, F-4D, F-4E, F-4F, F-4G, F-4J, F-4EJ-Kai; British FGR-2 and F-4J(UK). All the popular model scales are represented: 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32A first for scale modellers everywhere - a book aimed at scale modellers of all levels interested in building the F-4 Phantom II.