But the book’s successes are also a tribute to David White’s father, Theodore H White, because his Making of the President books of the 1960s and 70s were some of the most celebrated books of nonfiction of the last century. The Mosquito seemed safe. Until, that is, Freeman’s department was brought under the control of Churchill’s new Minister for Aircraft Production, Daily Express owner Lord Beaverbrook, who, demanding complete focus on a core of five existing aircraft, told Freeman to cancel it.

Had the Second World War in the air been decided on aesthetics alone, the RAF would have beaten the Luftwaffe hands-down. The Spitfire fighter had a deadly elegance that outshone its homelier rival, the Messerschmitt 109. In monumental majesty, the Lancaster dwarfed anything in the enemy’s bomber fleet. And as for the all-rounders in between, there was nothing that the Germans produced that could hold a candle to the marvellous Mosquito. caption id="attachment_7490" align="alignnone" width="163" caption="Evocative passages in First Light could have been written yesterday."] [/caption] Only published in 2002 this gripping account from an RAF Spitfire pilot of fighting in the Battle of Britain reads as fresh as if was written yesterday. Wellum, who joined 92 Squadron in 1940, was one of the youngest pilots in the Battle and eloquently describes how, to him, one year he was at school, the next he was engaged in a desperate fight with the Luftwaffe above Kent. West with the Night – Beryl Markham By October, the newly dubbed Mustang Mk10 was ready for takeoff. It reached an astonishing 427mph at 21,000ft. Even more astonishing, as it flew higher it no longer lost speed. It gained it.Ein Jahrhundert Luft- und Raumfahrt in Bremen: Von den frühesten Flugversuchen zum Airbus und zur Ariane Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Technical Specifications and Variants - Operational History - Conclusion. Author:

But Beaverbrook failed to put his demand in writing and so, without formal instruction from his boss, Freeman allowed de When in late 1938, as the prospect of war loomed over Europe, designer Geoffrey de Havilland first suggested the idea of a lightweight twin-engined bomber that relied on high speed rather than defensive gun turrets to protect itself, the Air Ministry told him: “Forget it.” Following a remarkable flying display laid on for General Hap Arnold, the head of the United States Army Air Corps, in April 1941, he rated it “‘outstanding” and insisted on taking a set of the blueprints home with him. Albatros fighters reached their zenith of deadly efficiency in the spring of 1917, when the Albatros D III took a heavy toll of Allied aircraft. Nearly every one of the 81 Jagdstaffeln, or fighter squadrons, operated one or more types of highly decorated Albatros aircraft at some point in their history. caption id="attachment_7495" align="alignnone" width="333" caption="A fascinating account of a fighter pilot's job during the Cold War."] [/caption] What First Light does for Spitfires and the Battle of Britain, Robert Prest does for the F-4 Phantom in RAF service in the Cold War. Bouncing Buccaneers at low level, the awesome power of a jet fighter at your fingertips, this book gives a day-to-day account of a fighter pilot on QRA defending the UK and NATO in the military stand-off in Europe. Superbly written. Night Flight – Antoine de Saint-ExuperyIn the end the Germans would regain air superiority, three squadron commanders - two of whom were considered pinnacles of their respective air forces - would lose their lives, and an up-and-coming pilot (Manfred von Richthofen) would triumph in a legendary dogfight and attain unimagined heights fighting with tactics learned from a fallen mentor.

caption id="attachment_7494" align="alignnone" width="222" caption="Fiction it may be, but Bomber conveys the courage and tragedy of WW2 night air raids in an unforgettable way."] [/caption] A masterpiece of storytelling and research, Len Deighton’s novel Bomber focuses on a single night in RAF Bomber Command’s aerial campaign against Germany in WW2. As well as the Lancaster crews, it also includes the point of view from ground crews, civilians and the Luftwaffe nightfighters. A brutal and harrowing account of total aerial warfare. F-4 Phantom - A Pilot’s Story - Robert Prest The Nobel-prize winning nuclear physicist was one of a number of high-value passengers including spies, downed aircrew and even artists on cultural visits who were carried to and from the Swedish capital inside the felt-lined fuselage of the war’s most unlikely airliner. The history of military and commercial aircraft from all over the world, decade by decade, to the present day in stunning visual detailcaption id="attachment_7496" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Night flight captures the solitude and risk of early air mail routes."] [/caption] A classic of aviation literature, the novel Night Flight is heavily based on French aviator and writer Saint-Exupery’s experience of working as an airmail pilot, in the interwar years. The book captures the danger and loneliness of these early commercial pilots, blazing routes in the days before radar, GPS and jet engines. Vulcan 607 – Rowland White After first entering RAF service with a photo reconnaissance unit, the first Mosquito bomber squadron formed a few months later. Even though every type of British-American collaboration was crucial, the authors report the remarkable fact that apart from radar, no other important weapon “had been developed by two nations in partnership during the war”. Each made very different and often contradictory demands of an aircraft, but the Mosquito was, perhaps uniquely, successful in all four roles. Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Technical Specifications and Variants - Operational History - Conclusion - Bibliography and Further Reading. Author:

Four months later, 105 Squadron spoiled Herman Göring’s big day in Berlin. Geoffrey de Havilland always maintained that simply being the “right size” was a crucial component of any successful aircraft design. With the Mosquito, he’d judged it to perfection.Contents: Introduction - Chronology - Design and Development - Technical Specifications - The Strategic Situation - The Combatants - Combat - Statistics and Analysis - Aftermath - Bibliography - Index. Author: