Fighter Planes (Beginners Plus)

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The Albatros was the scourge of the RFC on the Western Front in 1916-17, with pilots of the calibre of von Richthofen, Boelke and Schleich cutting swathes through their opponents. Well over 4000 Albatros scouts were built between 1916 and 1918, and they were also extensively used by the Austro-Hungarians against Russian, Italian and British aircraft until war's end. As spyplanes they crisscrossed Europe with near impunity gathering critical photographic intelligence that, among other things, helped delay the threat from Hitler’s V-2 ballistic missile. But it was their adoption by BOAC, the British Overseas Airways Corporation – the forerunner to British Airways – that saw the Mossie provide the fourth pillar of the air power quartet. 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. Air Marshal Wilfred Freeman, the man responsible for research, development and production of new aircraft for the RAF. 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.

Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Technical Specifications and Variants - Operational History - Conclusion - Bibliography and Further Reading. Author: Contents: Introduction - Chronology - Design and development - Strategic situation - Technical specifications - The combatants - Combat - Statistics and analysis - Aftermath - Bibliography - Glossary. Author:

Comprehensive catalogues highlighting the most important aircraft of each period along with their specifications and unique features 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-Exupery To try to ensure it didn’t, an expedition was sent out to explore the jungles of Central America in search of alternative sources of the lightweight wood.

After first entering RAF service with a photo reconnaissance unit, the first Mosquito bomber squadron formed a few months later. 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. With the inclusion of these aircraft into their reorganized air force, Germany was able to regain control of the skies by autumn 1916. Along with the later designs they inspired, the Albatros D.I and D.II were instrumental in allowing the Germans to prosecute their domination through 'Bloody April' and well into the summer months that followed. 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.Born-from-experience calls from German fighter pilots requested that, rather than compete with the maneuverability of these adversaries, new single-engine machines should be equipped with higher horsepower engines and armed with two rather than the then-standard single machine gun. David and Margaret White, a husband and wife team, tell the story of this little plane beautifully, from its gestation in the mind of a German immigrant in California, to the wartime corruption and shortsightedness that delayed the introduction of the Mustang after its successful test flights, to its final triumph in the skies over Europe in 1944 and 1945. 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. Such was the fear that they created within the Luftwaffe in the latter stages of the war as they loitered around German airfields after dark, ready to pounce on anything coming in or out, that the term Moskitopanik was coined. targets across occupied Europe that would come to define de Havilland’s Wooden Wonder in the mind of the public.

From September 1916 until late 1918, biplanes from the Albatros firm formed the primary equipment of Germany's fighter forces. Starting with the D I of 1916, these aircraft underwent a continuous programme of development and production to the D Va of late 1917. Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Technical Specifications and Variants - Operational History - Conclusion. Author: The Mosquito brought to bombing some much-needed accuracy, enabling surgical strikes on key targets that were beyond less gifted aircraft. Its numerous battle honours included some of the RAF’s most celebrated feats, including the daylight raid on Berlin in January 1943, timed to arrive just as Herman Göring was about to make a radio speech to mark the 10th anniversary of the Nazi takeover. The Reichsmarschall was cut off by the sound of 500lb pound bombs exploding across the capital.

In the end the Germans would regain air superiority, and hold it into the following summer with the employment of their new Jagdgeschwader (larger fighter groupings), but the FE 2 remained a tenacious foe that inflicted many casualties - some of whom were Germany's best aces (including 'The Red Baron'). But this crisp and authoritative book does much more. It includes a mini-history of the birth of aviation, cameos from Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, whose company produced the engine that took the Mustang from good to great, a thorough account of the air war in Europe from 1940 to 1945, and even the essential highlights of the war on the ground. The history of military and commercial aircraft from all over the world, decade by decade, to the present day in stunning visual detail In 1916 German aerial domination, once held sway by rotary-engined Fokker and Pfalz E-type wing-warping monoplanes, had been lost to the more nimble French Nieuports and British DH 2s which not only out-flew the German fighters but were present in greater numbers. caption 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

When originally conceived, the French SPAD VII and German Albatros D II represented steps away from an emphasis on manoeuvre in aerial combat in favour of speed and durability. At the end of 1916, however, Albatros tried to have the best of both worlds. The result combined the better downward view and manoeuvrability of the Nieuport with the power and twin machine guns of the Albatros D II. 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 Contents: Introduction - Chronology - Design and Development - Technical Specifications - The Strategic Situation - The Combatants - Combat - Statistics and Analysis - Aftermath - Bibliography - Index. Author: Each made very different and often contradictory demands of an aircraft, but the Mosquito was, perhaps uniquely, successful in all four roles. But Beaverbrook failed to put his demand in writing and so, without formal instruction from his boss, Freeman allowed de

Albatros D.I-D.II

caption id="attachment_7493" align="alignnone" width="161" caption="Flying for fun has never been as funny."] [/caption] Staring grimly at British rain clouds, maintaining your own aircraft, and the fun of wind-in-your-face flying, Propellerhead captures the essence of popular flying in the UK at the grassroots level. The author, keen to impress girls at the start of the book by ‘becoming a pilot’, decides to take up flying and enters the addictive world of the weekend microlight aviators, with gently humorous results. Highly recommended. Bomber – Len Deighton At the same time, the French worked to improve the SPAD VII with more power and a more reliable cooling system before moving on to the twin-gunned SPAD XIII. While all that was going on, the Albatros D III became a mainstay of the German and Austro-Hungarian air services in frequent encounters with SPAD VIIs flown by French, Belgian, British, Italian and American airmen. And, because of its unique wood and glue construction, furniture factories, cabinetmakers and musical instrument manufacturers around Britain were able to put their carpentry-skilled workforces to work helping keep up with demand for de Havilland’s masterpiece. Ein Jahrhundert Luft- und Raumfahrt in Bremen: Von den frühesten Flugversuchen zum Airbus und zur Ariane