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The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, commonly nicknamed the "Warthog" due to its unusual and ungainly appearance, became the most effective close-air-support aircraft that has ever served for the US Air Force and Air National Guard. Designed around the GAU-8/A Avenger autocannon, the aircraft was a highly effective tank killer during Operation Desert Storm. The Warthog continues to serve, from its first appearance in 1976 through subsequent wars up to the present time, and well into the f...

On 20 July 1969, US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. NASA Mission AS-506 Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual is the story of the Apollo 11 mission and the 'space hardware' that made it all possible. This manual looks at the evolution and design of the mighty Saturn V rocket, the Command and Service Modules, and the Lunar Module. It describes the space suits worn by the crew and their special life support and communications systems. We learn about...

'Robert Verkaik makes a revisionist case for an unsung aircraft, the Boulton Paul Defiant. This two-seat gun-turret fighter is, argues Verkaik, the forgotten fighter of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain; the effectiveness as well as the courage of its crews is overlooked in standard accounts. To advance his case, he notes that a Defiant squadron still holds the record for the number of enemy aircraft shot down in a single day, with a claimed figure of 38'Times 'Robert Verkaik tells the story of...

"History of Flight. From the Flying Machine of Leonardo da Vinci to the Conquest of the Space" is a book dedicated to the history of human flight, ranging from the first, uncertain attempts of the medieval period to the most advanced operations, such as the Space Shuttle, convertiplanes, the unmanned aircrafts, the 21st century superfighters, and the commercial airliners to be produced by Airbus and Boeing. The book is divided into 27 chapters in chronological order, each one dedicated to a spe...

By the beginning of May 1942, five months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the US Navy was ready to challenge the Japanese moves in the South Pacific. When the Japanese sent troops to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the Americans sent the carriers Lexington and Yorktown to counter the move, setting the stage for the Battle of the Coral Sea.In Scratch One Flattop: The First Carrier Air Campaign and the Battle of the Coral Sea, historian Robert C. Stern analyzes the Battle of the Coral Sea, th...

Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe, played a critical role in the Third Reich’s victories in the early part of World War II, providing the airborne component of the German forces’ irresistible Blitzkrieg (`lightning war’) tactics that swept all armies before it from 1939 to 1942. Broken down by campaign and key battles within each theatre of war, Order of Battle: German Luftwaffe in World War II illustrates the strengths and organizational structures of the Third Reich’s air force, building in...

When Jacques Schneider devised and inaugurated the Coupe d'Aviation Maritime race for seaplanes in 1913, no-one could have predicted the profound effect the Series would have on aircraft design and aeronautical development, not to mention world history. Howard Pixton's 1914 victory in a Sopwith Tabloid biplane surprisingly surpassed the performance of monoplanes and other manufacturers turned back to biplanes. During The Great War aerial combat was almost entirely conducted by biplanes, with th...

History has recorded that the first ever powered flight took place at Kitty Hawk in America, on 17 December 1903 and was carried out by the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who were aircraft designers and manufacturers. By the time of the outbreak of the First World War, aviation was only eleven years old. The daddy of battlefield warfare until that point in time had been the cavalry, a position it maintained even as war was declared on the Western Front. Aircraft were not initially seen as...

Designed as the benchmark against which competitors in the 1912 Military Aeroplane Competition were judged, the B.E.2 outperformed them all and was put into production becoming the most numerous single type in Royal Flying Corps service. The B.E.2c, a later variant, was designed to be inherently stable and was nicknamed the 'Quirk' by its pilots. Intended mainly for reconnaissance, it was hopelessly outclassed by the Fokker Eindecker fighter and its defenceless crews quickly became known as 'Fok...

In just over a century aircraft have evolved from experimental machines to the amazing supersonic jets of today. This exhaustively researched book traces this fascinating development highlighting the pivotal technological innovations.

D'Urban Victor Armstrong was born on 26 July 1897 in Natal, South Africa. Having initially enlisted in the South African Defence Force on the outbreak of war in 1914, he soon sought a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. He was awarded his flying licence on 12 February 1916, marking the start of what was a remarkable wartime career as a fighter pilot. Such was the skill Armstrong displayed when in the air, he was famed among his British, French and American contemporaries as the best Camel pilot...