The beautiful hills of Northumberland hide the secrets of our almost forgotten recent history. The sites of many air crashes are difficult lt to locate, even though these aircraft and sometimes their crew met their fate relatively recently. Chris Davies has located and visited over 140 crash sites. In this thoroughly researched book, he discusses the location, history and stories surrounding thirty of these, from the German aircraft that crashed in the Cheviots during the Second World War to NATO exercises that went horribly wrong in the 1980s. Chris's work in discovering where these men lost their lives has provided closure for many families. Simon Colverson, the nephew of P/O M. W. Rivers, commented in a note of thanks, 'The sight of nearly forty people grouped together on a remote and windy hillside nearly seventy years after the crash to commemorate my uncle was deeply moving, and I will cherish the memory for the rest of my life.' Chris provides a major piece in the jigsaw of aviation history in Northumberland, recording an important part of Northumberland's local history that might otherwise have been lost in the mists of time.

First launched in 1965, the Boeing 737, by many measures, is the most successful and long-standing jetliner in the history of aviation. This volume provides an in-depth look into the story of this extremely significant jetliner and the environment that has contributed to this amazing story. Many of the actual people who designed, marketed, and flew this airplane have contributed greatly to this book, with widespread quotes throughout. This study is rich with many photographs and drawings that are published for the first time and take the reader deeper into the story. Included in this book is a technical chapter that defines the systems and provides a detailed pilot's walk-around. For the hobbyist, a well detailed, pictorial chapter demonstrates the building of airliner models, and provides many techniques for new and experienced modelers alike.

The Pilots Information File (PIF) was the standard reference for any general information required of USAAF pilots and flight engineers. The PIF covered items of a general nature that a combat flyer must know in order to fight an air war and survive.

This is a guide to the existing WWII aircraft to be found in aviation museums throughout the world. Each DPS contains a colour photo of an example of the aircraft as viewed in an aviation museum, examples of different marks (wartime shots in mono) and a textual resume of the type with statistics.The aircraft can be viewed in the USA, UK, France, Czechoslovakia, USSR, Canada, Australia, Finland, Holland, Poland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and Spain.

The second edition of airline ticket designs from exotic places like Naura, Nicaragua, New Caledonia, Afghanistan and Burkino-Faso is now in hardback. More new tickets from the biggest private collection of tickets in the world and follows the success of the first edition Tickets Please! Transadriatica, Alitalia, Concorde, Malev, Bursa, Brymon, El Al and Royal Nepal continue the adventure This extended 176 page hardback covers the gamut of airlines from flagship megabrands to some of the least known operators. Air Ceylon, Tunis, Air Atlas, Braniff, Spantax and Vasp will fly you to the most obscure corners of the world. The tickets all share a sharp eye for colour and design and no aviation library is complete without this book.

This is the story of 32 years of Boeing 747 jumbo jet service with French leisure carrier Corsair, bringing together the individual history of their 24 747s, and two in-depth historical essays: the story of the Boeing 747, and the complete story of Corsair through four eventful decades. Also included is a detailed technical description of the 747, and a special history of the only French 747SP. The heart of the book is the employee memories, from warzones to Caribbean paradise. 288 pages and over 500 photos and illustrations. Also published in French language.

The Tornado F2 had a troubled introduction to service. Unloved by its crews and procured as a political imperative, it was blighted by failures and was developed to counter a threat that disappeared. Modified rapidly before it could be sent to war, the Tornado F3 eventually matured into a capable weapons system, but despite datalinks and new air-to-air weapons, its poor reputation sealed its fate. The author, a former Tornado F3 navigator, tells the story from an insider's perspective from the early days as one of the first instructors on the Operational Conversion Unit, through its development and operational testing, to its demise. David Gledhill reflects on its capabilities and deficiencies and analyses why the aircraft was mostly underestimated by opponents. Although many books have already described the Tornado F3, the author's involvement in its development will provide a unique insight into this complex and misunderstood aircraft programme and dispel some of the myths surrounding it.

This book charts the development and service history of the Antonov design bureau's heavy transport aircraft. In the late 1950s, the Antonov design bureau began developing the An-22 heavy military transport, intended to carry 50 tons. Powered by four 15,000 hp turboprops, it was the world's heaviest transport when it first flew in February 1965. The four-turbofan An-124 was again the world's most capable airlifter when it emerged in 1982, with a payload of 120 tons. It proved its worth in military and humanitarian operations and earned acclaim as a commercial freighter after 1991 for carrying heavy and outsized items. The unique six-engined An-225 "Mriya" was created for carrying the Buran space shuttle. Despite the demise of the Buran program, the aircraft found use on the heavy/outsized cargo transportation market. It is illustrated by a wealth of new photos and color artwork, as well as line drawings.-

The Boulton Paul Balliol was the last British aircraft powered by the iconic Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, and the last piston-powered advanced trainer in both the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. Yet it began life as the world's first turbo-trainer, conceived in the last days of the Second World War, and became the first aircraft with a single prop-jet, beating the rival Avro Athena into the air by two weeks. However, policy changed and it was with the trusty Merlin that the Balliol ultimately went into production. Boulton Paul Aircraft hoped for huge orders-opening a second production line at Blackburn Aircraft in anticipation-but the RAF decided to switch to all-jet training; even though a dozen were sold to the Royal Ceylon Air Force, total Balliol production only ever amounted to just over 200 examples. Consigned to another footnote in aviation history, this was the last aircraft Boulton Paul-already world-leaders in the manufacture of power controls- would ever build. The Boulton Paul Balliol: The Last Merlin-Powered Aircraft is a detailed account of the journey of this aeroplane and its creators, and the shifting sands within the highly competitive post-war aeronautics industry. This is a beautifully illustrated insight into how a small, pioneering British manufacturer dealt with the fluctuating demands of its era, enhanced by the author's own story as a Boulton Paul enthusiast and restorer.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * At the end of World War II, a band of aces gathered in the Mojave Desert on a Top Secret quest to break the sound barrier-nicknamed "The Demon" by pilots. The true story of what happened in those skies has never been told. Speed. In 1947, it represented the difference between victory and annihilation. After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than one's enemy became the singular obsession of American war planners. And so, in the earliest days of the Cold War, a highly classified program was conducted on a desolate air base in California's Mojave Desert. Its aim: to push the envelope of flight to new frontiers. There gathered an extraordinary band of pilots, including Second World War aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, who risked their lives flying experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots called "the demon." Shrouding the program in secrecy, the US military reluctantly revealed that the "barrier" had been broken two months later, after the story was leaked to the press. The full truth has never been fully revealed-until now. Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the first time, the extraordinary true story of mankind's quest for Mach 1. Here, of course, is twenty-four-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. Officially Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new interviews with survivors of the program, including Yeager's former commander, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents evidence that a fellow American-George Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down a remarkable sixteen enemy aircraft during the Pacific War-met the demon first, though he was not favored to wear the laurels, as he was now a civilian test pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1. Chasing the Demon sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, so that the reader can learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before.

The Sahara Desert, February 1962: the wreckage of a plane emerges from the sands revealing, too, the body of the plane’s long-dead pilot. But who was he? And what had happened to him?

Baker Street, London, June 1927: twenty-five-year-old Jessie Miller had fled a loveless marriage in Australia, longing for adventure in the London of the Bright Young Things. At a gin-soaked party, she met Bill Lancaster, fresh from the Royal Air force, his head full of a scheme that would make him as famous as Charles Lindbergh, who has just crossed the Atlantic. Lancaster wanted to fly three times as far – from London to Melbourne – and in Jessie Miller he knew he had found the perfect co-pilot.

By the time they landed in Melbourne, the daring aviators were a global sensation – and, despite still being married to other people, deeply in love. Keeping their affair a secret, they toured the world until the Wall Street Crash changed everything; Bill and Jessie – like so many others – were broke. And it was then, holed up in a run-down mansion on the outskirts of Miami and desperate for cash, that Jessie agreed to write a memoir. When a dashing ghostwriter Haden Clark was despatched from New York, the toxic combination of the handsome interloper, bootleg booze and jealousy led to a shocking crime. The trial that followed put Jessie and Bill back on the front pages and drove him to a reckless act of abandon to win it all back.

The Lost Pilots is their extraordinary story, brought to vivid life by Corey Mead. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, and full of adventure, forbidden passion, crime, scandal and tragedy, it is a masterwork of narrative nonfiction that firmly restores one of aviation’s leading female pioneers to her rightful place in history.