First published in 1999, this book is an institutional history of flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and paced both lighter-and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. Americans flew combat missions in France during World War I and during World War II. During this first era of military aviation, the groundwork was laid for the independent United States Air Force. This document is primarily based on official documents that are house in the National Archives and Records Administration. It is the first definitive study of this important subject.

The United States military space program began at the end of World War II when a few people realized that space flight was now achievable and could be employed to military advantage. Science and technology in the form of advance radar, jet propulsion, ballistic rockets such as the V-2, and nuclear energy had dramatically altered the nature of war. Army Air Forces Commanding General Henry Arnold wrote in November 1845 that a space ship "is all but practicable today" and could be build "within the foreseeable future" The following month the Air Force Scientific Advisory Group concluded that long-range rockets were technically feasible and that satellites were a "definite possibility."

First published in 2002. From the foreword: "This insightful work by David N. Spires holds many lessons in tactical air-ground operations. Despite peacetime rivalries in the drafting of service doctrine, in World War II the immense pressures of wartime drove army and air commanders to cooperate in the effective prosecution of battlefield operations. In northwest Europe during the war, the combination of the U.S. Third Army commanded by Lt. Gen. George S. Patton and the XIX Tactical Air Command led by Brig. Gen. Otto P. Weyland proved to be the most effective allied air-ground team of World War II. The great success of Patton's drive across France, ultimately crossing the Rhine, and then racing across southern Germany, owed a great deal to Weyland's airmen of the XIX Tactical Air Command. This deft cooperation paved the way for allied victory in Western Europe and today remains a classic example of air-ground effectiveness. It forever highlighted the importance of air-ground commanders working closely together on the battlefield. The Air Force is indebted to David N. Spires for chronicling this landmark story of air-ground cooperation."

First published in 1999, this book is an institutional history of flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and paced both lighter-and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. Americans flew combat missions in France during World War I and during World War II. During this first era of military aviation, the groundwork was laid for the independent United States Air Force. This document is primarily based on official documents that are house in the National Archives and Records Administration. It is the first definitive study of this important subject.

First published in 2000. From the foreword: "Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, a series of geographically localized crises caused by political, religious, or ethnic unrest; outright military aggression; and natural disasters has replaced the relative stability that characterized international relations for more than fifty years of the Cold War. For the United States Air Force (USAF), this has meant short-notice deployments, airlifts, and other operational missions conducted in reaction to local crises. Such missions-once of secondary importance to nuclear deterrence or preparations for theater war-have come to dominate Air Force operations. The result has been recognition that global aerospace power and mobility are central to effective American crisis intervention in the post-Cold War world. This recognition has led the U.S. Air Force to restructure itself as an Expeditionary Aerospace Force, exploiting diverse core competencies consisting of global air and space superiority, rapid global mobility, precision engagement, global attack, information superiority, and agile combat support. Via rapid-response air expeditionary forces, the U.S. Air Force can furnish global power and presence for humanitarian or combat purposes-"bombs or bread or both"-in hours to any spot on Earth. A traditional precept of USAF doctrine has been that the service must always be prepared to assess its roles and missions in light of new and ever-changing national policy and strategy. Recognizing that doctrine is largely a distillation of knowledge gained from historical experience, the Air Force Historical Research Agency has compiled this record of USAF contingency operations covering the last half-century. This book is an effort to meet the needs of Air Force commanders and other decision makers for a useful reference work on contingencies. One of an ongoing series of reference works, it is organized in the style of the recently published The United States Air Force and Humanitarian Airlift Operations, 1947-1994. It adds to the history of the Air Force by providing statistics and narrative descriptions of the Air Force's most significant contingency operations over the last fifty years."

From the foreword: "In the 1930s the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama, was the birthplace and nurturing ground for American air doctrine. The work undertaken at the school became manifest in the skies over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific in the Second World War. Those who studied and taught there were the same individuals who prepared America for war, and then led its airmen into combat. This band of men spawned and shaped the independent United States Air Force in the postwar era. Their influence is still felt today, for they developed the airpower doctrines and institutions that enabled the United States to prevail in the Cold War. Their strategic vision, evolved from the thoughts of Douhet, Mitchell, and Trenchard, is now embodied in the Air Force's notion of Global Reach-Global Power. The legacy of the Air Corps Tactical School continues on with the comprehensive programs of the Air University, the world's premier airpower training institution. From flight within the atmosphere to flight within space, American airmen fly their missions based on principles enunciated in the lecture halls of Maxwell Air Force Base."

First published in 2005. Contains papers from a symposium in commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War. Focuses on contributions made by the armed forces of the United States and its allies to the air warfare during the Korean War.