HMS Eagle was already old when war was declared in September 1939 and her new Swordfish biplanes were soon flying escort to vital Australian troop convoys in the wastes of the Indian Ocean. This is a day-by-day account of her battles and actions as seen through the eyes of her former crew members.

The Douglas Devastator was the US Navy's first all-metal combat aircraft, the Navy's first airplane with a fully enclosed cockpit, the first aircraft to have hydraulically folding wings, and the first US Navy torpedo bomber to see combat. Although facing staggering losses in the early stages of the war in the Pacific, the brave men flying the Devastator from the decks of such famed ships as Enterprise, Hornet, Yorktown, and Lexington held the line against the enemy. Through carefully researched photos, many of which have never before been published and which are reproduced in remarkable clarity, the history and details of this iconic aircraft are revealed. This clarity, and the large size of many of the photos, coupled with descriptive and informative captions, puts the reader in the skies with this historic aircraft.

On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen U.S. aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Their angular shape, making them look like flying origami, rendered them virtually undetectable. Each aircraft was more than 60 feet in length and with a wingspan of 40 feet, yet its radar footprint was the size of a ball bearing. Here was the first extensive combat application of Stealth technology. And it was devastating. Peter Westwick's new book illuminates the story behind these aircraft, the F-117A, also known as the Stealth Fighter, and their close cousin the B-2, also known as the Stealth Bomber. The development of Stealth unfolded over decades. Radar has been in use since the 1930s and was essential to the Allies in World War Two, when American investment in radar exceeded that in the Manhattan Project. The atom bomb ended the war, conventional wisdom has it, but radar won it. That experience also raised a question: could a plane be developed that was invisible to radar? That question, and the seemingly impossible feat of physics and engineering behind it, took on increasing urgency during the Cold War, when the United States searched for a way both to defend its airspace and send a plane through Soviet skies undetected. Thus started the race for Stealth. At heart, Stealth is a tale of not just two aircraft but the two aerospace companies that made them, Lockheed and Northrop, guided by contrasting philosophies and outsized personalities. Beginning in the 1970s, the two firms entered into a fierce competition, one with high financial stakes and conducted at the highest levels of secrecy in the Cold War. They approached the problem of Stealth from different perspectives, one that pitted aeronautical designers against electrical engineers, those who relied on intuition against those who pursued computer algorithms. The two different approaches manifested in two very different solutions to Stealth, clearly evident in the aircraft themselves: the F-117 composed of flat facets, the B-2 of curves. For all their differences, Lockheed and Northrop were located twenty miles apart in the aerospace suburbs of Los Angeles, not far from Disneyland. This was no coincidence. The creative culture of postwar Southern California-unorthodox, ambitious, and future-oriented-played a key role in Stealth. Combining nail-biting narrative, incisive explanation of the science and technology involved, and indelible portraits of unforgettable characters, Stealth immerses readers in the story of an innovation with revolutionary implications for modern warfare.

In 1940, the strategically vital island of Malta was Britain's last toehold in the central Mediterranean, wreaking havoc among Axis shipping. Launching an air campaign to knock Malta out of the war, first Italy and then Germany sought to force a surrender or reduce the defences enough to allow an invasion. Drawing on original documents, multilingual aviation analyst Ryan Noppen explains how technical and tactical problems caused the original Italian air campaign of 1940-41 to fail, and then how the German intervention came close to knocking Malta out of the war. Using stunning full colour artwork, this fascinating book explains why the attempt by the Axis powers to take the British colony of Malta ultimately failed.

By the middle of 1918 the British Army had successfully mastered the concept of 'all arms' warfare on the Western Front. This doctrine, integrating infantry, artillery, armoured vehicles and - crucially - air power, was to prove highly effective and formed the basis of major military operations for the next hundred years. Yet, whilst much has been written on the utilisation of ground forces, the air element still tends to be studied in isolation from the army as a whole. In order to move beyond the usual 'aircraft and aces' approach, this book explores the conceptual origins of the control of the air and the role of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) within the British army. In so doing it addresses four key themes. First, it explores and defines the most fundamental air power concept - the control of the air - by examining its conceptual origins before and during the First World War. Second, it moves beyond the popular history of air power during the First World War to reveal the complexity of the topic. Third, it reintegrates the study of air power during the First World War, specifically that of the RFC, into the strategic, operational, organisational, and intellectual contexts of the era, as well as embedding the study within the respective scholarly literatures of these contexts. Fourth, the book reinvigorates an entrenched historiography by challenging the usually critical interpretation of the RFC's approach to the control of the air, providing new perspectives on air power during the First World War. This includes an exploration of the creation of the RAF and its impact on the development of air power concepts.

The North American P-51 Mustang was one of the most successful and effective fighter aircraft of all time. It was initially produced in response to a 1940 RAF requirement for a fast, heavily-armed fighter able to operate effectively at altitudes in excess of 20,000ft. North America built the prototype in 117 days, and the aircraft, designated NA-73X, flew on 26 October 1940. The first of 320 production Mustang Is for the RAF flew on 1 May 1941, powered by a 1,100hp Allison V-1710-39 engine. RAF test pilots soon found that with this powerplant the aircraft did not perform well at high altitude, but that its low-level performance was excellent. It was when the Mustang airframe was married to a Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that the aircraft's true excellence became apparent. Possessing a greater combat radius than any other Allied single-engine fighter, it became synonymous with the Allied victory in the air. During the last eighteen months of the war in Europe, escorting bomber formations, it hounded the Luftwaffe to destruction in the very heart of Germany. In the Pacific, operating from advance bases, it ranged over the Japanese Home Islands, joining carrier-borne fighters such as the Grumman Hellcat to bring the Allies massive air superiority. Yet the Mustang came about almost by accident, a product of the Royal Air Force's urgent need for new combat aircraft in the dark days of 1940, when Britain, fighting for survival, turned to the United States for help in the island nation's darkest hour.

THE "NEW YORK TIMES" AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
December, 1943: A badly damaged American bomber struggles to fly over wartime Germany. At the controls is twenty-one-year-old Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown. Half his crew lay wounded or dead on this, their first mission. Suddenly, a Messerschmitt fighter pulls up on the bomber's tail. The pilot is German ace Franz Stigler--and he can destroy the young American crew with the squeeze of a trigger...
What happened next would defy imagination and later be called "the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II."
The U.S. 8th Air Force would later classify what happened between them as "top secret." It was an act that Franz could never mention for fear of facing a firing squad. It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search the world for each other, a last mission that could change their lives forever.
INCLUDES PHOTOS

Although New Guinea's Thunderbolt pilots faced several different types of enemy aircraft in capricious tropical conditions, by far their most common adversary was the Nakajima Ki-43-II Hayabusa, codenamed 'Oscar' by the Allies. These two opposing fighters were the products of two radically different design philosophies. The Thunderbolt was heavy, fast and packed a massive punch thanks to its battery of eight 0.50-cal machine guns, while the 'Oscar' was the complete opposite in respect to fighter design philosophy - lightweight, nimble, manoeuvrable and lightly armed. It was, nonetheless, deadly in the hands of an experienced pilot. The Thunderbolt commenced operations in New Guinea with a series of bomber escort missions in mid-1943, and its firepower and superior speed soon saw Fifth Air Force fighter command deploying elite groups of P-47s to Wewak, on the northern coast. Flying from there, they would pick off unwary enemy aircraft during dedicated fighter patrols. The Thunderbolt pilots in New Guinea slowly wore down their Japanese counterparts by continual combat and deadly strafing attacks, but nevertheless, the Ki-43-II remained a worthy opponent deterrent up until Hollandia was abandoned by the IJAAF in April 1944. Fully illustrated throughout with artwork and rare photographs, this fascinating book examines these two vastly different fighters in the New Guinea theatre, and assesses the unique geographic conditions that shaped their deployment and effectiveness.

An epic adventure--the most brilliant escape and evasion from the Nazis ever written.
Eric Williams, a Royal Air Force bomber captain, was shot down over Germany in 1942 and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III, the infamous German POW camp. Digging an underground tunnel hidden beneath a wooden vaulting horse, he managed to escape after ten months and, accompanied by a fellow officer, made his way back to England. In this thinly fictionalized retelling, Williams relates his story in three distinct phases: the construction of a tunnel (its entrance camouflaged by the wooden vaulting horse in the exercise yard) and hiding the large quantities of sand he dug; the escape; and the journey on foot and by train to the port of Stettin, where Williams and his fellow escapee stowed away aboard a Danish ship, the "Norensen."
From painstakingly digging the tunnel to secretly depositing the dirt and gravel around the camp to dodging searchlights and search dogs and climbing barbed wire fences, this is an escape story hard to beat. For sheer heroism, courage, and perseverance, this classic is arguably the most ingenious POW escape of WWII. "The Wooden Horse" became a legend among servicemen long before its publication in 1949 and has remained one ever since.

Drones quite possibly represent the most transformative military innovation since jet engines and atomic weaponry. No longer do humans have to engage in close military action or be in the same geographical vicinity as the target. Now, through satellite imaging and remote technology, countries such as the United States can destroy small targets halfway around the world with pinpoint accuracy. In the last several years, many of the military advancements have been rivaled by those in the commercial realm. Civilian industries have clamored to acquire drones for everything from monitoring crops to filming Hollywood movies to delivering packages. Not surprisingly, the use of drones has generated a lively debate, but no book thus far has engaged the range of themes surrounding drones. How do drones work? To what extent has the technology proliferated to other nations outside the US? How can they be used on the ground and in maritime environments? How are they being integrated into both military and civilian life? In Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know, the international relations scholar (and former air force officer) Sarah Kreps provides a concise synthesis of the topic. The book explains how they and the systems associated with them work, how they are being used today, and what will become of the technology in the future. What readers need now is a more practical guide to how this technology is reshaping both military and civilian life; this book is that guide. The drone revolution has already changed warfare, and will soon become a commonplace tool in a civilian context too. It is clear that drone technology is here to stay. Drones: What Everyone Needs to Know explains how the revolution happened, what its current contours are, and where we might be headed next.

Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska's Ladd Field on a routine flight to test their hastily retrofitted B-24 Liberator in harsh winter conditions. The mission ended in a crash that claimed all but one- Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with no wilderness experience. With little more than a parachute for cover and an old Boy Scout knife in his pocket, Crane found himself alone in subzero temperatures. 81 Days Below Zero recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane's remarkable twelve-week saga.

In 2018 the RAF is one hundred years old. In his new book, destined to be a classic, Patrick Bishop examines the high point of its existence - the Second World War, when the Air Force saved the nation from defeat then led the advance to victory. A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Air warfare was a terrible novelty of the modern age, requiring a new military outlook. From the beginning, the RAF's identity set it apart from the traditional services. It was innovative, flexible and comparatively meritocratic, advancing the quasi-revolutionary idea that competence was more important than background. The Air Force went into the war with inadequate machines, training and tactics, and the early phase was littered with setbacks and debacles. Then, in the summer of 1940, in full view of the population, Fighter Command won one of the decisive battles of the struggle. Thereafter the RAF was gilded with an aura of success that never tarnished, going on to make a vital contribution to Allied victory in all theatres. Drawing from diaries, letters, memoirs, and interviews, Air Force Blue captures the nature of combat in the skies over the corrugated wastes of the Atlantic, the sands of the Western Desert and the jungles of Burma. It also brings to life the intensely lived dramas, romances, friendships and fun that were as important a part of the experience as the fighting. Air Force Blue portrays the spirit of the RAF - its heart and soul - during its finest hours. It is essential reading for the millions in Britain and the Commonwealth whose loved ones served, and for anyone who wants to understand the Second World War.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the overnight destruction of the Moehne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron, was an epic that has passed into Britain's national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who won the VC leading the raid. In the 21st Century, however, Hastings urges that we should review the Dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew's heroism was wholly authentic, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, who invented the 'bouncing bombs'. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised wildly. What Germans call the Moehnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams at the cost of devastating losses. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Moehne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers under Hitler. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris gained much of the credit, though he opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. He also made what the author describes as the operation's biggest mistake - the failure to launch a conventional attack on the Nazis' huge post-raid repair operation, which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches upon Ruhr industry. Chastise offers a fascinating retake on legend by a master of the art. Hastings sets the dams raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.

The Boeing 707 family - that includes the forerunner Model 367-80, the KC-135 series of military transports and the slightly smaller Model 720 - was the pioneer of the sweptback wing, incorporating podded engines borrowed from the B-47 military bomber. It was the aircraft that many regard as the design that really ushered in the Jet-Age. This new book from the established aviation historian Graham Simons examines the entire course of the Boeing 707 s history, charting an impressive design evolution and illustrating the many ways in which the 707 s legacy continues to be felt to this day. In laying the foundation for Boeing's preeminence on the word s jetliner market during the 1980s and 90s, the 707 paved the way for future innovations in both civilian and military fields and Graham Simons has put together an image-packed history that records the historic and landmark milestones of this iconic aircraft type.

We Seek the Highest has been the motto of the thousands of Officer Cadets who, over ten decades, have passed through the rigorous training regime at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, Lincolnshire. The words embody the College ethos: to strive to reach the tough standards demanded by the RAF, in the air and on the ground. This book tells the 100-year story from the point of view of the Officer Cadets themselves. The College was founded in 1919 - some eighteen months after the birth of the RAF itself - with the aim of providing a cadre of disciplined, highly-trained officers, ready to lead the service through the uncertain post-war and post-Empire times to come. Since then, it has responded continuously to the UK's political, economic and military requirements. The RAF Officer Cadets' world has thus been one of change. The author documents these changes from 1919 to today, overlaying the historical and social scene with the candidly related airborne and ground-based exploits of three-score ex-cadets. The core narrative is based on the three years at Cranwell of 81 Entry of Flight Cadets, who graduated in July 1962 with thirty-seven jet pilots and eight navigators, having launched a curriculum-changing experiment in degree-level studies. With a Foreword from an Air Chief Marshal former cadet, 130 illustrations, and a full index, the whole offers a cadets' tribute to a world-famous military academy on its centenary.

Joshua M. Epstein argues that prevailing assumptions about the East- West balance of power rest on erroneous measures of military strength. He develops a method for analyzing military capabilities and applies that general procedure to the Soviet tactical air threat to NATO.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In Heroes of the Skies, Michael Ashcroft relays the stories our most courageous airmen. From those who flew when aeroplanes were in their flimsy infancy during the First World War, through the bomber crews and fighter pilots of the Second World War, to heroes of more recent conflicts in Northern Ireland , the Falklands and Afghanistan, every man in this book risked his life for his comrades and his country. In telling the stories of the individual bravery of more than eighty such men, Heroes of the Skies also paints a picture of a century of aerial combat and allows us to celebrate the extraordinary feats of our flying heroes.

This book discusses the practice of no-fly zones in international affairs. The first no-fly zone was imposed over northern Iraq immediately after the first Gulf War, and since then they have become a regular recourse for policymakers confronted with humanitarian crises. They have come to be viewed as a feasible, essentially non-violent form of intervention that can be performed entirely from the air in a situation where some form of action is widely thought to be necessary but the political will for a ground operation is insufficient. Nonetheless, even among policy makers there is limited understanding of the requirements, the shortcomings and the potentialities of no-fly zones. This is the first comprehensive work on this topic, and examines the assumptions surrounding no-fly zones by focusing on issues such as authority, cost, possibility of escalation and effectiveness. Looking back at 25 years of experience with no-fly zones, the book's goal is to look at what historical lessons may be drawn and to make some predictions with regard to the politics and strategy of no-fly zones in the future. This book will be of much interest to students of air power, security studies, Middle Eastern Studies and IR in general

Flight Lieutenant Thomas Tommy' Rose, a First World War fighter ace, was a pioneer of private flying. He installed and managed the UK's first fuel pump for private aviation at Brooklands before becoming Sales Manager for Phillips and Powis Aircraft Ltd. The chief flying instructor at several early flying schools, Tommy became the Chief Test Pilot for Miles Aircraft and was the winner of air races and pageants. He was undoubtedly a pilot who could always be relied on to amaze the onlookers with his fast, accurate stunts and low-level flying. Mentioned in Despatches in 1916 and awarded the DFC in 1918, Tommy was attacked in his aircraft several times, yet his astonishing ability at the controls of his aircraft enabled him to land without serious injury. By the time of the Armistice, Tommy had been credited with eleven kills'. He continued to demonstrate these skills after the war and though this true trailblazer was widely known in his glory days during the early part of the twentieth century, little is remembered about him today. Yet Tommy Rose achieved the most incredible feats of aviation and was considered one of the finest pilots of his era, completing over 11,200 flying hours up to 1949. In the 1930s, Tommy took the Imperial Airways route through East Africa, to set up a new world record on the UK to Cape Town passage, beating Amy Mollison (Johnson) who took the shorter course down the west coast. He also won the King's Cup Air Race in 1935. Tommy flew many of the early RAF fighters from Maurice Farman to the Spitfire Mk.IX, and, from late 1939, when he was appointed Chief Test Pilot for Phillip & Powis Aircraft Ltd at Woodley (forerunners of Miles Aircraft Ltd), he test flew all Miles monoplane training and target towing aircraft, leaving in January 1946. His last position was as General Manager of Universal Flying Services Ltd at Fairoaks Aerodrome in Surrey. The result of decades of research by the author, through this book the life and adventures of one of history's most accomplished and daring aviators can finally be told.

At the end of the First World War, British imperial power was at an all-time low. That was until a ragtag band of visionaries, including Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence, proposed that the aeroplane, the wonder weapon of the age, could save the empire. Using the radical strategy of air control, the RAF tried to subdue vast swathes of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Wings of Empire is a compelling account of the colonial air campaigns that saw a generation of young airmen take to the skies to battle against cultures that had never seen a plane before. This is the full story of the RAF's most extraordinary conflict, told here for the first time.

From acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier, this is a highly illustrated survey of the aerial fighting in the flashpoints of the Cold War. The Cold War years were a period of unprecedented peace in Europe, yet they also saw a number of localised but nonetheless very intense wars throughout the wider world in which air power played a vital role. Flashpoints describes eight of these Cold War conflicts: the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Congo Crisis of 1960-65, the Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971, the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, the Falklands War of 1982 and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. In all of them both sides had a credible air force equipped with modern types, and air power shaped the final outcome. Acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier details the wide range of aircraft types used and the development of tactics over the period. The postwar years saw a revolution in aviation technology and design, particularly in the fields of missile development and electronic warfare, and these conflicts saw some of the most modern technology that the NATO and Warsaw Pact forces deployed, alongside some relatively obscure aircraft types such as the Westland Wyvern and the Folland Gnat. Highly illustrated, with over 240 images and maps, Flashpoints is an authoritative account of the most important air wars of the Cold War.

This book provides a detailed general overview of the human factors and performance limitations associated with flying fast jets, integrating all the latest available research literature on the demanding operational tasks faced by such pilots and aircrews. As such, it has a strong military focus, dealing with pilots of fighter aircraft, attack aircraft and lead-in fighter trainer aircraft that are traditionally only single or dual pilot operations. The book deals not only with the issue of G force, but discusses ejection and escape/survival, disorientation, high altitude physiology, pilot training and selection, helmet-mounted equipment, situational awareness, data fusion and multi-sensor integration, human machine interface issues and advanced cockpit design. It examines the human performance issues associated with the technological advances made in fast jets, such as increased manoeuvrability, increased use of the pilot's head as a mounting platform for sensor and weapons systems, and the complexities involved in the human-machine interface within these aircraft.

Plucked from every background, and led by an N.K.V.D. Major, the new recruits who boarded a train in Moscow on 16th October 1941 to go to war had much in common with millions of others across the world. What made the 586th Fighter Regiment, the 587th Heavy-bomber Regiment and the 588th Regiment of light night-bombers unique was their gender: the Soviet Union was creating the first all-female active combat units in modern history. Drawing on original interviews with surviving airwomen, Lyuba Vinogradova weaves together the untold stories of the female Soviet fighter pilots of the Second World War. From that first train journey to the last tragic disappearance, Vinogradova's panoramic account of these women's lives follows them from society balls to unmarked graves, from landmark victories to the horrors of Stalingrad. Battling not just fearsome Aces of the Luftwaffe but also patronising prejudice from their own leaders, women such as Lilya Litvyak and Ekaterina Budanova are brought to life by the diaries and recollections of those who knew them, and who watched them live, love, fight and die.