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"Airplanes, Military United States History."
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American Military Training Aircraft
The U.S.did not become the world's foremost military air power by accident.The learning curve--World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and more recently the war on terror--has been steep.While climbing this curve, the U.S.
eBook
Vanishing Point
In Vanishing Point
, award winning journalist and author Tom Wilber pieces
together the largely forgotten story of the bomber,
Getaway Gertie , and an eclectic
group of enthusiasts who have spent years searching for
it.
At the height of World War II, a B-24 Liberator bomber vanished
with its crew while on a training mission over upstate New York.
The final hours and ultimate resting place of pilot Keith Ponder
and seven other US aviators aboard the plane remain mysteries to
this day. The tale is at once a compelling instance of loss on the
World War II American home front and a more extensive, largely
unreported history. Ponder-a 21-year-old from rural Mississippi-and
his crew were tragically unexceptional casualties in the monumental
effort to recruit and train an air force en masse to counter the
global conquest of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. More than
fifteen thousand American airmen and, in some cases, women burned,
crashed, or fell to their deaths in stateside training accidents
during the war-their lives and stories shuffled away in piles of
Air Force bureaucracy.
The forgotten story of Getaway Gertie was originally
inspired by summer evenings around the campfire on the shores of
Lake Ontario, where parts of the plane have washed up. Building on
those campfire tales, Wilber deftly connects myth with fact and
memory with historicity. The result is a vivid portrait of the
forgotten soldier of the home front and a new take on the meaning
of wartime sacrifice as the last survivors of the Greatest
Generation pass away.
eBook
To Kill Nations
Between 1945 and 1950, the United States had a global nuclear monopoly. The A-bomb transformed the nation's strategic airpower and saw the Air Force displace the Navy at the front line of American defense. InTo Kill Nations, Edward Kaplan traces the evolution of American strategic airpower and preparation for nuclear war from this early air-atomic era to a later period (1950-1965) in which the Soviet Union's atomic capability, accelerated by thermonuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, made American strategic assets vulnerable and gradually undermined air-atomic strategy. The shift to mutually assured destruction (MAD) via general nuclear exchange steadily took precedence in strategic thinking and budget allocations. Soon American nuclear-armed airborne bomber fleets shaped for conventionally defined-if implausible, then impossible-victory were supplanted by missile-based forces designed to survive and punish. The Air Force receded from the forefront of American security policy.
Kaplan throws into question both the inevitability and preferability of the strategic doctrine of MAD. He looks at the process by which cultural, institutional, and strategic ideas about MAD took shape and makes insightful use of the comparison between generals who thought they could win a nuclear war and the cold institutional logic of the suicide pact that was MAD. Kaplan also offers a reappraisal of Eisenhower's nuclear strategy and diplomacy to make a case for the marginal viability of air-atomic military power even in an era of ballistic missiles.
eBook
F-22 Raptor
Presents information about the F-22 Raptor, covering how it is used, its history, and its specifications.
Book
Flying Camelot
Winner of the Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award
Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
It was an era when debates about aircraft superiority went public-and these were not uncontested discussions. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change.
The design and advancement of the F-15 and F-16 reflected this group's nostalgic desire to recapture the best of World War I air combat. Known as the \"Fighter Mafia,\" and later growing into the media savvy political powerhouse \"Reform Movement,\" it believed that American weapons systems were too complicated and expensive, and thus vulnerable. The group's leader was Colonel John Boyd, a contentious former fighter pilot heralded as a messianic figure by many in its ranks. He and his group advocated for a shift in focus from the multi-role interceptors the Air Force had designed in the early Cold War towards specialized air-to-air combat dogfighters. Their influence stretched beyond design and into larger politicized debates about US national security, debates that still resonate today.
A biography of fighter pilot culture and the nostalgia that drove decision-making, Flying Camelot deftly engages both popular culture and archives to animate the movement that shook the foundations of the Pentagon and Congress.
eBook
Lords of the sky : fighter pilots and air combat, from the Red Baron to the F-16
\"By the New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot, former USAF F-16 legend Dan Hampton tells the thrilling story of how fighter pilots have ruled the skies for 100 years, from the Red Baron to today's supersonic jets\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Turtle and the Dreamboat
The 'Turtle' and the 'Dreamboat' is the first detailed
account of the race for long-distance flight records between the
U.S. Army and U.S. Navy less than fourteen months after World War
II. The flights were risky and unprecedented. Each service intended
to demonstrate its offensive capabilities during the dawning
nuclear age, a time when America was realigning its military
structure and preparing to create a new armed service-the United
States Air Force. The first week of October 1946 saw the conclusion
of both record-breaking, nonstop flights by the military fliers.
The first aircraft, a two-engine U.S. Navy P2V Neptune patrol plane
nicknamed the Truculent Turtle , flew more than eleven
thousand miles from Perth, Western Australia, to Columbus, Ohio.
The Turtle carried four war-honed pilots and a young
kangaroo as a passenger. The second plane, a four-engine U.S. Army
B-29 Superfortress bomber dubbed the Pacusan Dreamboat ,
flew nearly ten thousand miles from Honolulu to Cairo via the
Arctic. Although presented as a friendly rivalry, the two flights
were anything but collegial. These military missions were meant to
capture public opinion and establish aviation leadership within the
coming Department of Defense. Both audacious flights above oceans,
deserts, mountains, and icecaps helped to shape the future of
worldwide commercial aviation, greatly reducing the length and
costs of international routes. Jim Leeke provides an account of the
remarkable and record-breaking flights that forever changed
aviation.
eBook