This book describes the development of the legendary F4U Corsair, and follows it into battle from Guadalcanal to the Indian Ocean, Central Pacific Ocean, Korea, Africa, and Central America, and throughout its lengthy military career into Korea. Also included are chapters on the most decorated Corsair pilots, surviving examples of various models, as well as detailed appendices, and the author's own detailed line schemes and maps. A total of 2,814 F4U-1, F4U-1A, and F4U-2 Corsairs were constructed and delivered. Musciano's book describes how this naval fighter was transformed to perform a myriad of functions for which it was never intended.

Spain (1936-9), China (1937 onwards), Mongolia (1939), Finland (1939-40) and France (1939-40) were a testing ground for a new approach to air tactics with western democracies and totalitarian states analyzing the resulting lessons. Attention in Air Wars 1920-1939: The Development and Evolution of Fighter Tactics is given to the means by which intelligence on aerial tactics was collected and why it was not always fully absorbed, resulting in many nations having to relearn the same lessons at the outset of the Second World War. Finland, during the Winter War, while not involved in Spain or any other air war of the time, better applied the lessons being learned than that of the Soviet Union, which had been directly involved in air wars fought over China, Mongolia and Spain. In the case of Britain, not only were the lessons of Spain ignored, but so too that of its own experimental fighter unit, the AFDE (Air Fighting Development Establishment) that had been formed in 1934 and which was reinforcing the intelligence received from those real air war conflicts."

As the first unit to fly the Merlin-engined P-51B in combat, the 354th Fighter Group adopted the nickname "Pioneer Mustang Group." Until D-Day, it escorted 8th AF heavy bombers to targets on the European Continent. The group then moved to France and supported Patton\s Third Army from Normandy to Bavaria, and also participated in the Battle of the Bulge. Its pilots scored over 600 confirmed air victories, and forty-three of them became aces. This book is an almost day-to-day account of their aerial combat experiences and the "gypsy" lifestyle they and their support personnel led as they moved from one airfield to another across Western Europe.

The T-33 jet trainer was derived from the Lockheed F-80C Shooting Star, the USAF's first operational jet fighter, in 1948. In the fifty years since its introduction the T-33 has trained more jet pilots than any other training type. In addition to this role, it has served, and continues to serve, as an attack fighter - the AT-33 - and as a reconnaissance aircraft - the RT-33 - in several foreign air forces. It was also a testbed in many development programs including tests on ejection seats and missile guidance systems, and continues yet today in various military and civilian roles.

A fully illustrated study of the Nakajima Ki49 ‘Helen’, the twin-engined bomber of the Pacific War, from Japanese aviation expert George Eleftheriou.

The Nakajima Ki-49 Donryu (‘Dragon Eater’), codenamed ‘Helen’ by the Allies, was a twin-engined Japanese bomber designed to undertake daylight attacks without the protection of escort fighters. Consequently, while it was officially known as the Army Type 100 Heavy Bomber, its formidable defensive armament and armour were so heavy that they restricted the Ki-49 to payloads comparable to those of smaller medium bombers.

While only five heavy bomber sentai (regiments) were equipped with the ‘Helen’, the over 800 Ki-49s built between 1941 and 1944 saw extensive action in Burma, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, northern India and north Australia.

In an act of desperation, a small number of ‘Helens’ were even employed, unsuccessfully, as kamikaze aircraft against US Navy warships operating off the Philippines and Okinawa.

In this fascinating book, George Eleftheriou provides a comprehensive account of the units that saw action flying the ‘Helen’, based on original Japanese sources. Also featuring high-quality photographs never published before, specially commissioned colour profile artwork, official unit histories and veteran accounts, this title is a must-have for Japanese aircraft enthusiasts.

The 448th Bomb Group from its inception at Gowen Field, Idaho, in 1943 until the cessation of hostilities in Europe in 1945. An in-depth, personal look into the men who carried the war to the heart of the German Reich. Although the 448th Bomb Group never received the notoriety of some of the more famous Groups of the Eighth Air Force, it was one of the many units that successfully completed its mission every day. Among the unsung heroes of World War II were these normal men who completed their missions, day after day.

Flight Lieutenant David Moore Crook DFC's original _Spitfire Pilot_ ranks among the finest first-hand accounts published during the Second World War, particularly for a Battle of Britain airman. It rightly remains a sought-after classic. A Spitfire pilot during the epic aerial battles of the summer of 1940, 'DMC' became a decorated ace. However, he did not survive the war: his Spitfire inexplicably crashed into the sea off the Scottish coast on 18 December 1944\. A married man and father, he remains missing. First published under wartime conditions in 1942, _Spitfire Pilot_ was not heavily censored - unlike Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC's similar first-hand account _Spitfire! The Experiences of a Fighter Pilot_, published the same year. DMC's book was based on his entries in two Stationary Office lined notebooks, hastily scribbled between sorties, and using his pilot's flying log book for reference. In 1990, the renowned Battle of Britain historian Dilip Sarkar traced DMC's widow, Dorothy, who enthusiastically supported the idea of re-publishing _Spitfire Pilot_. She duly uncovered bound copies of DMC's original manuscript, which she passed to Dilip. _The Real Spitfire Pilot_ is, therefore, DMC's original, completely uncensored and unedited words, shared here for the first time. It provides a totally authentic window on the past, providing a unique glimpse at the lives - and deaths - of real Spitfire pilots in our Finest Hour. With an introduction and conclusion by Dilip Sarkar, and illustrated with previously unseen photographs, this is destined to become another classic.

The Republic Aviation Corporation F-84 series, the Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, and Thunderflash was the United States Air Forces first Post World War II jet fighter. As a somewhat sad result of this, it has been ignored by most aviation historians and aficionados. It was not the Air Forces first operational jet fighter, as that honor went to the Lockheed F-80 which was created during World War II. And it did not receive the glory of the North American Aviation F-86, which followed it in sequence and was more photogenic, faster, and more involved in the glory of aerial combat. Nevertheless, the F-84 performed its unheralded role in a true yeoman fashion. It, and its pilots and groundcrews, fought the air-to-mud role as a fighter bomber in Korea. It served as an interceptor, and in photo reconnaissance. It was the first jet fighter to be operationally capable of air refueling, and it was the first to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon. 4300 of the straight-wing F-84s were built, along with 2713 of the swept-wing F-84Fs, and 715 of the reconnaissance RF-84Fs. Almost 8000 unrecognized fighters, of which half of those produced served as a deterrent to enemy forces during the Cold War while being flown by friendly foreign countries.

Israel acquired sixty-one Dassault Mystere IVA combat aircraft from France that were delivered to the Israeli Air Force from April to September 1956 and were issued to two units: Squadron 101 at Hatzor, in the south, and Squadron 109 at Ramat David, in the north. From 1956 until 1959, and to a lesser extent from 1959 until 1962, the Mystere was the ILAF's cutting-edge interceptor. From 1959, the Mystere's main mission shifted from air-to-air to air-to-ground, as more modern interceptors-Super Mystere from 1959 and Mirage from 1962-entered Israeli Air Force service. At the same time, the Israeli Air Force initiated an effort to introduce an attack aircraft to succeed the Mystere. The Squadron 109 Mystere era therefore covered mostly air-to-air from 1956 until 1962 and mostly air-to-ground from 1962 until 1968.

This handbook examines the militarization of space, providing a fair and balanced discussion of the emerging issues concerning space security and defense. The militarization of space is already underway, with unpredictable consequences for the way war will be conducted in the future. Military Space Power: A Guide to the Issuesexamines the militarization of space from historical, technological, and geopolitical angles. It traces space militarization from concepts proposed before World War II through the use of space for military surveillance and communications purposes to the actual deployment of weapons that pass through high-altitude space, such as ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed interceptors. The book focuses on the main space pioneers like the United States, Russia, and China, but also includes discussion of potential future players. It looks at the state of current space technology, but also projects how recent inventions or new discoveries might be weaponized for the space environment. And it analyzes how the militarization of space might influence international relations. The result is a fair and balanced discussion of the emerging issues concerning space security and defense.

Why do states who are committed to the principle of civilian immunity and the protection of non-combatants end up killing and injuring large numbers of civilians during their military operations? Bugsplat explains this paradox through an in-depth examination of five conflicts fought by Western powers since 1989. It argues that despite the efforts of Western military organizations to comply with the laws of armed conflict, the level of collateral damage produced by Western military operations is the inevitable outcome of the strategies and methods through which their military organizations fight wars. Drawing on their superior technology and the strategic advantage of not having to fight on their own territory, such states employ highly-concentrated and overwhelming military force against a wide variety of political, economic, and military targets under conditions likely to produce high civilian casualties. As a result, collateral damage in western-fought wars is largely both foreseeable and preventable. The book title is derived from the name of a computer program that had been used by the Pentagon to calculate probable civilian casualties prior to launching air attacks.

The author begins with a general survey of British aircraft manufacturing in the inter-war period, focusing on the technical and productive capacity of the industry prior to rearmament and on government thinking on wartime expansion. Subsequent chapters examine Air Ministry production policy, airframe and aero-engine production, manpower supply and utilization, finance and investment and contractual relations between state and industry. The final chapter is concerned with the mobilization of the aircraft industry on the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the revision of pre-war development and production programmes, the emergency measures of 1940 and the formulation of longer-term plans for the remainder of the war.

The Lavochkin fighters remain little known in the West, although with the Yakovlev fighter series they were the backbone of the Red Air Force fighter force during the Second World War. The author rectifies that with this comprehensive history of these fighters. With this book he describes in great detail the three main variants of the Lavochkin fighter series during the Second World War: the only partially successful LaGG-3 inline-engined fighter, the successful radial-engined La-5 fighter, and the superb radial engined La-7 fighter, one of the best piston-engined fighter aircraft of the entire Second World War. Both the design and history of these fighters are featured, including how the mediocre inline engined LaGG-3 was turned into a top notch fighter by the replacement of the Klimov inline engine by the Shvetsov M-82 radial engine. Besides describing the wartime designs he includes a section on the postwar successors to the Second World War fighters, the completely new all metal La-9 and La-11, which saw extensive postwar service. Accurate color profiles illustrate all variants.

Formed in 1918, the Royal Air Force is the oldest independent air force in the world. This long history has seen operations conducted across a variety of terrains in vastly different aircraft, from biplanes to bombers, from jet to delta wing, through to the fighter, surveillance, and air mobility aircraft of today. This book charts the story of the RAF through its aircraft and its most significant events, remembering and highlighting such key milestones as the Battle of Britain and the Dams Raid. The RAF Colouring Book is the perfect gift for children and RAF enthusiasts, and will keep them occupied and educated for hours.

Number 7 in the Luftwaffe Profile Series describes the design and use of the Heinkel He 60.

From historian and columnist in Leatherneck and Armor magazines, this is the exciting, personal account of a Marine fighter squadron in the South Pacific during the critical days of 1943 when the tide turned against the Japanese. Based on individual interviews and wartime documents, this is a thrilling narrative of the Marines who lived, and died, during the toughest battles of the entire war. It looks at the war through the eyes of some of the greatest fighter pilots of all time, including Bob Hanson, the "Maharajah of Rabaul," and highest scoring Corsair pilot in history.

On 16 May 1943, nineteen Lancaster aircraft from the RAF's 617 Squadron set off to attack the great dams in the industrial heart of Germany. Flying at a height of 60ft, they dropped a series of bombs which bounced across the water and destroyed two of their targets, thereby creating a legend. The one-off operation combined an audacious method of attack, technically brilliant flying and visually spectacular results. But while the story of Operation Chastise is well known, most of the 133 'Dambusters' who took part in the Dams Raid have until now been just names on a list. They came from all parts of the UK and the Commonwealth and beyond, and each of them was someone's son or brother, someone's husband or father. This is the first book to present their individual stories and celebrate their skill, heroism and, for many, sacrifice.

With first-hand insight into the into the key role of the US Air Force's fighter-bomber from the Vietnam War through to Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War, this book is an unmissable account of some of the most dangerous and demanding missions in the two wars. The advent of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) in the early 1950s threatened the whole concept of aerial bombing from medium and high altitude. Countermeasures were developed during the Korean War, but with little initial success. It was only in the closing stages of the Vietnam War, with the F-4Cww Phantom II (Wild Weasel 4), that this equipment started to become successful enough to allow a substantial investment in converting 116 F-4E Phantom IIs into dedicated SEAD aircraft. This move introduced a new generation of anti-radar missiles which became invaluable in later operations including operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Northern Watch over Iraq. This volume features dynamic archival photography from crews who flew the jet, alongside mission accounts and technical details of the development and fielding of the F-4 Wild Weasel in its various iterations. Including specially commissioned artwork of 'sharkmouthed' Phantom IIs in Vietnam jungle camouflage and more modern USAF 'Ghost Gray', this book is the ultimate visual and technical guide to the F-4 Phantom II Wild Weasel Units in combat.

A tribute to one of the top fighter aces of the World War II, this new full length biography appears here in its first edition. Marseilles' wartime exploits are legendary with the 158 aerial victories, including 17 in one day. He was, and still is, considered by many of the Luftwaffe aces to be the premier fighter pilot of the Luftwaffe-all before the age of twenty-three. Also chronicled is the combat life of JG 27, Marseilles' unit, and the various personalities throughout the North African campaign.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have seen unprecedented levels of growth during the last decade in both military and civilian domains. It is anticipated that civilian applications will be dominant in the future, although there are still barriers to be overcome and technical challenges to be met. Integrating UAS into, for example, civilian space, navigation, autonomy, see-detect-and-avoid systems, smart designs, system integration, vision-based navigation and training, to name but a few areas, will be of prime importance in the near future.

This special volume is the outcome of research presented at the International Symposium on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, held in Orlando, Florida, USA, from June 23-25, 2008, and presents state-of-the-art findings on topics such as: UAS operations and integration into the national airspace system; UAS navigation and control; micro-, mini-, small UAVs; UAS simulation testbeds and frameworks; UAS research platforms and applications; UAS applications.

This book aims at serving as a guide tool on UAS for engineers and practitioners, academics, government agencies and industry.

Previously published in the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, 54 (1-3, 2009).

This volume, the second in a mulit-volume history of German aviation, discusses the life work of one of Germany's greatest aircraft designers in pictures, tables, drawings and in his own words discussing flight testing of his airplanes. Examined are the birth of Focke-Wulf's airplanes, the ideas and thinking which formed the foundation of Tank's designs, his masterpieces in the areas of long-range and high-speed flight as well as flight test results. The reader experiences the metamorphosis of an aircraft design from the first pencil line on the drawing board to the screaming, nearly supersonic dives during its evaluation phase. Tank would only entrust to civilian pilots, military flyers and the captains of the Lufthansa fleet those designs whose superior flying characteristics, stability, and flawless stall handling he had been able to experience first hand. A mixture of technical history, flight testing and previously unpublished data enable the reader to catch a fascinating glimpse of the aircraft built during the 1930s and 1940s, not to mention the outstanding designs Tank worked on in other countries following the war. All of the classic Focke-Wulf aircraft are to be found: the well-known Fw 200, Fw 190, Ta 152, and Ta 154, as well as the lesser known Fw 57, Fw 187, Fw 189 and others.

In November 1942 the RAF formed special Strike Wings to attack the heavily defended and seemingly invulnerable convoys that brought Germanys vital supplies of iron ore from Scandinavia down the coast of Europe to feed its war machine. The outcome was a series sea/air battles at close quarters, fought with increasing ferocity until the last days of the war. The Germans tried everything against the Beaufighters and Mosquitos of the Strike Wings fighters, intense flak, parachute mines and even flame-throwers and the casualties were appallingly heavy on both sides. In this classic account of one of the neglected yet crucial theatres of the air war Roy Nesbit, himself a survivor of strike aircraft of Coastal Command, describes these complex battles from British and German records, assisted by first-hand accounts from some of the brave airmen who took part. He also analyzes the effects of the tactics employed on the German war economy, with some startling conclusions. The result is a fascinating, clearly written and vivid history of events that were little publicized during the war for reasons of security. His book includes detailed diagrams of some of the key attacks and features some astonishing photographs taken in action.