Author: Michael H. Goodall
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764312076
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
For the very first time, the history of British pre-World War I aircraft has been gathered together in one volume, with more than 900 of them well illustrated. This new book constitutes a most valuable contribution about a remarkable period in aviation history and is a memorial to the bravery and inventiveness of the intrepid pioneers of that far off era. Among the many famous manufacturer's covered are Avro, Sopwith, Shorts, and Bristol. Many lesser known designers and builders such as Martin-Handasyde and Howard Wright are also given ample coverage.
Author: Mark C. Wilkins
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1612008828
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
A vivid pictorial history: “Buy this book right now. It is rare that ISD gives an instant five-star rating to any new volume, but [this] is a rare book.” —Indy Squadron Dispatch World War I witnessed unprecedented growth and innovation in aircraft design, construction, and—as the war progressed—mass production. Each country generated its own innovations, sometimes in surprising ways—Albatros Fokker, Pfalz, and Junkers in Germany and Nieuport, Spad, Sopwith, and Bristol in France and Britain. This book focuses on the British approach to fighter design, construction, and mass production. Initially the French led the way in Allied fighter development with their Bleriot trainers, then nimble Nieuport Scouts—culminating with the powerful, fast gun platforms as exemplified by the Spads. The Spads had a major drawback however, in that they were difficult and counterintuitive to fix in the field. The British developed fighters in a very different way; Tommy Sopwith had a distinctive approach to fighter design that relied on lightly loaded wings and simple functional box-girder fuselages. His Camel was revolutionary as it combined all the weight well forward, enabling the Camel to turn very quickly—but also making it an unforgiving fighter for the inexperienced. The Royal Aircraft Factory’s SE5a represented another leap forward with its comfortable cockpit, modern instrumentation, and inline engine—clearly influenced by both Spads and German aircraft. Each manufacturer and design team vied for the upper hand and deftly and quickly appropriated good ideas from other companies—be they friend or foe. Developments in tactics and deployment also influenced design—from the early reconnaissance planes, to turn fighters, and finally planes that relied upon formation tactics, speed, and firepower. This book tells their story through extensive photos and accompanying text. “Handy not only as an aircraft model reference, but also as great reading for all history fans.” —DetailScaleView “Sidebars add important information at the proper place.” —Air Power History
Author: Leonard E. Opdycke
Publisher: Schiffer Military History
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
French Aeroplanes Before the Great War is a catalog of the aeroplanes of the nearly 700 French builders who worked before the onset of World War I. Most of these aeroplanes flew some did not some were never even finished but all of them reflect the extraordinary vitality and sense of optimism that powered the aeronautical world before the future of the aeroplane began to become clearer in wartime. If the Wrights had not flown in 1903, one of the early French builders would very quickly have won the laurels for the first flight. Some of the machines appear in these pages probably for the first time in print; others are rarely seen. This collection serves as a kind of super Exposition Internationale de Locomotion Arienne; readers are invited to enter the Grand Palais, as they might have in 1908 or 1909, to enjoy these marvelous aircraft.
Author: Jack Herris
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 9781906626662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Illustrated with detailed artworks of combat aircraft and their markings, 'The Essential Aircraft Identification Guide: Aircraft of WWI' is a comprehensive study of the aircraft that fought in the Great War of 1914–18. Arranged chronologically by theater of war and campaign, this book offers a complete organizational breakdown of the units on all the fronts, including the Eastern and Italian Fronts. Each campaign includes a compact history of the role and impact of aircraft on the course of the conflict, as well as orders of battle, lists of commanders and campaign aces such as Manfred von Richtofen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Albert Ball and many more.
Author: Vladimir Kotelnikov
Publisher: Helion
ISBN: 9781915070883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This book is about the fate of British and American aircraft that came to Russia prior to 1941, and their influence on aviation and aircraft production in the country. The book was written on the basis of materials from various archives and museums, and contains a large number of illustrations, some of which are used for the first time.
Author: Jeff Herne
Publisher: The Crowood Press
ISBN: 1785007823
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
Modelling British Aircraft of World War II provides essential guidance for modellers of all levels of experience. It gives advice on how to get started, from choosing the best kit to preparing your workspace with the right tools, paints and equipment. Tips on the use of reference material, construction techniques and painting recipes are given. The book provides step-by-step building and painting techniques of the following models: 1/48 Hurricane Mk IIc, 1/32 Spitfire Mk IIa, 1/48 Mosquito Mk VI, 1/48 Swordfish Mk II and 1/72 Lancaster B III. Instructional use of after-market detailing kits and accessories is given as well as advice on fitting a base or creating a diorama. Finally, there is a chapter on Royal Air Force camouflage and markings.
Author: Colin Owers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781953201164
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
British Aircraft of WWI, Volume 3 | Fairey Aircraft, is the story of these little-known aircraft by noted historian Colin Owers. The story is told in extensive text, specifications, 254 photos, 15 color profiles, and scale drawings of 7 Fairey aircraft. The book has 225 pages.
Author: Malcolm Cooper
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000338975
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
In forming the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, Britain created the world’s first independent air service. Britain entered the First World War with less than 200 ill-assorted flying machines divided between the army and the navy, but by the end of the war the RAF mustered almost 300,000 personnel and 22, 000 aircraft. Originally published in 1986, more than 65 years after the event, the decision to form the RAF remained poorly understood and Malcolm Cooper presented the first detailed modern analysis of its creation, shedding new light on the process by which Britain entered the air age. Set against the background of the build-up of air power during the First World War, the book explains how deepening political concern at failures in home air defence, public demands for retaliatory air action against Germany, problems of mobilization and expansion in the aircraft industry, and disagreements between the existing army and navy air services combined to create the conditions for an independent air force. The author argues that the pressures of war were insufficient to give real substance to the RAF’s independence and that its failure to escape from its wartime role as an ancillary service was also of crucial significance in the evolution of British air strategy in later years. Based on an extensive study of official documents and private papers and amply illustrated with contemporary photographs, this title will prove invaluable in understanding both strategic thinking in the Great War and the early development of a form of warfare which dominated military and naval operations in the twentieth century.
Author: James Hamilton-Paterson
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571271731
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
In 1945 Britain was the world's leading designer and builder of aircraft - a world-class achievement that was not mere rhetoric. And what aircraft they were. The sleek Comet, the first jet airliner. The awesome delta-winged Vulcan, an intercontinental bomber that could be thrown about the sky like a fighter. The Hawker Hunter, the most beautiful fighter-jet ever built and the Lightning, which could zoom ten miles above the clouds in a couple of minutes and whose pilots rated flying it as better than sex. How did Britain so lose the plot that today there is not a single aircraft manufacturer of any significance in the country? What became of the great industry of de Havilland or Handley Page? And what was it like to be alive in that marvellous post-war moment when innovative new British aircraft made their debut, and pilots were the rock stars of the age? James Hamilton-Paterson captures that season of glory in a compelling book that fuses his own memories of being a schoolboy plane spotter with a ruefully realistic history of British decline - its loss of self confidence and power. It is the story of great and charismatic machines and the men who flew them: heroes such as Bill Waterton, Neville Duke, John Derry and Bill Beaumont who took inconceivable risks, so that we could fly without a second thought.
Author: Brett Holman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317022637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303
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Book Description
In the early twentieth century, the new technology of flight changed warfare irrevocably, not only on the battlefield, but also on the home front. As prophesied before 1914, Britain in the First World War was effectively no longer an island, with its cities attacked by Zeppelin airships and Gotha bombers in one of the first strategic bombing campaigns. Drawing on prewar ideas about the fragility of modern industrial civilization, some writers now began to argue that the main strategic risk to Britain was not invasion or blockade, but the possibility of a sudden and intense aerial bombardment of London and other cities, which would cause tremendous destruction and massive casualties. The nation would be shattered in a matter of days or weeks, before it could fully mobilize for war. Defeat, decline, and perhaps even extinction, would follow. This theory of the knock-out blow from the air solidified into a consensus during the 1920s and by the 1930s had largely become an orthodoxy, accepted by pacifists and militarists alike. But the devastation feared in 1938 during the Munich Crisis, when gas masks were distributed and hundreds of thousands fled London, was far in excess of the damage wrought by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz in 1940 and 1941, as terrible as that was. The knock-out blow, then, was a myth. But it was a myth with consequences. For the first time, The Next War in the Air reconstructs the concept of the knock-out blow as it was articulated in the public sphere, the reasons why it came to be so widely accepted by both experts and non-experts, and the way it shaped the responses of the British public to some of the great issues facing them in the 1930s, from pacifism to fascism. Drawing on both archival documents and fictional and non-fictional publications from the period between 1908, when aviation was first perceived as a threat to British security, and 1941, when the Blitz ended, and it became clear that no knock-out blow was coming, The Next War in the Air provides a fascinating insight into the origins and evolution of this important cultural and intellectual phenomenon, Britain's fear of the bomber.
