Military Air

September 1962: On a moonless night over the raging Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles from land, the engines of Flying Tiger flight 923 to Germany burst into flames, one by one. Pilot John Murray didn't have long before the plane crashed headlong into the 20-foot waves at 120 mph. As the four flight attendants donned life vests, collected sharp objects, and explained how to brace for the ferocious impact, 68 passengers clung to their seats. They all expected to die.

Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.

Sixty-five thousand tons, 280 metres long. A flight deck the size of 60 tennis courts. A giant piece of Sovereign British territory that's home to up to 50 aircraft. HMS Queen Elizabeth in the biggest ship in the Royal Navy's history and one of the most ambitious and exacting engineering projects ever undertaken in the UK. But it's her ship's company of 700, alongside an air group of 900 air and ground crew, that are Big Lizzie's beating heart. And How to Build an Aircraft Carrier tells their story.

Nichol tells the remarkable tale of how the ejection seat was first conceived during the Second World War as countless lives were lost in accidents and in battle. In the wake of the war, that technological race to save aircrew lives using explosive seats continued at an incredible pace. Nichol tells the story of the brave men who risked their lives testing those early devices, and interviewed the first British pilot to eject back in 1949, when ejection, from pulling the handle to being under the parachute, took thirty seconds. Today, that figure is down to around one second.

The story of one of the most remarkable–and feared–British aircraft of the Second World War: the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito fighter-bomber.

The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and risking their U.S. citizenship to fight side-by-side with England's finest pilots in the summer of 1940—over a year before America entered the war. Flying the lethal and elegant Spitfire, they became "knights of the air" and with minimal training but plenty of guts, they dueled the skilled and fearsome pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe. By October 1940, they had helped England win the greatest air battle in the history of aviation.

On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists who demanded the release of 53 terrorists. The plane was forced to divert to Entebbe in Uganda - ruled by the murderous despot Idi Amin, who had no interest in intervening. Days later, Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers assaulted the airport terminal, killed all the terrorists, and rescued all the hostages but three who were killed in the crossfire. The assault force suffered just one fatality.

In this second edition of his memoir, previously titled "CIA Super Pilot Spills the Beans," former H-34 and Bell Huey pilot Capt. Bill Collier tells of his experiences flying helicopters in Laos for Air America, during the CIA's secret war waged into the 1970s. It was the war correspondent Anne Darling who described the pilots of Air America as "CIA Super Pilots," and as Collier tells of flying in challenging weather and combat conditions with his best Vietnam helicopter pilot buddy, Gary, the pair shared enough adventure to make any novel seem lame.

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

Higher, farther, faster - what every real aviator aspires to. The SR-71 was the epitome of this dream for three decades. The only way to beat the SR-71 was to rocket into space, and every astronaut in the office with me in the 1960s would have loved to have flown the Blackbird. In many ways it placed greater demand on piloting proficiency than any spacecraft.

Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.

Whirlwind is the only book to examine in depth the human drama behind the most important bombing campaign in history. While the air war against Nazi Germany has been covered in-depth by many books, Barrett Tillman, a renowned authority on military aircraft and the air war in the Pacific, is the first to tackle the air war against Japan. For decades, historians and politicians have debated whether or not Japan was on the verge of surrender in August 1945---before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The firebombing of Tokyo. Strategic Air Command. John F. Kennedy. Dr. Strangelove. George Wallace. All of these have one man in common—General Curtis LeMay, who remains as enigmatic and controversial as he was in life. Until now. Warren Kozak traces the trajectory of America’s most infamous general, from his troubled background and heroic service in Europe to his firebombing of Tokyo, guardianship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the Cold War, frustrated career in government, and short-lived political run.

This insightful chronicle takes listeners inside the experiences of America's fighter pilots and bomber crews, an incredible assortment of men who, in nearly four years of warfare all over the globe, suffered over 120,000 casualties, with over 40,000 killed. Their stories span the Earth, into every corner of the combat theaters in both Europe and the Pacific. And the aircraft explored are as varied, tough, and legendary as the men who flew them.

The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior—a deep reconnaissance scout and attack aircraft—was legendary to those it supported. Regularly flying mere feet off of the ground while intentionally drawing enemy fire, almost everyone called Kiowa pilots crazy. Responsible for hunting elusive enemy fighters and protecting those under their charge, Kiowa crews displayed a fierce and intense devotion that was unparalleled.

For more than three decades, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the US Navy’s premier carrier-based, multirole fighter jet. From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.

In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times best-selling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family - imprisoned by the Japanese - and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Vulcan 607 by Rowland White, read by Roy McMillan. It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943.... When Argentine forces invaded the Falklands in the early hours of 2 April 1982, Britain's military chiefs were faced with a real-life Mission Impossible.

In the predawn darkness of D-Day, an elite fighting force struck the first blows against Hitler's Fortress Europe. Braving a hail of enemy gunfire and mortars, bold invaders from the sky descended into the hedgerow country and swarmed the meadows of Normandy. Some would live, some would die, but all would fight with the guts and determination that made them the most famous US Army division in World War II: the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles".