Archive for Items Categorized 'Military', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

P-61 Black Widow, Northrop Night Fighter in WWII

by David Doyle

Designed from the outset to incorporate then-new radar the P-61 became America’s first dedicated night fighter, capable of carrying heavy weapons to give it the bite of the deadly nocturnal predator spider it is named after.

Bloody Dangerous: Fifty Missions Over Germany

The Last First-Hand Account From World War II

by Flt Lt Colin Bell, DFC

Chew on that subtitle for a moment: the last first-hand? Sure, you’ve seen a pile of war biographies already … but this author is a centenarian. And he rappelled down the side of a building at 102. Bloody dangerous all over again.

SR-71 Blackbird: Stories, Tales, and Legends

by Richard H. Graham

The Blackbird may be old but stories about this “hottest plane in the cold war” don’t get old. Here people who were involved in many different areas of its building and operation relate stand-out situations.

Skyhookers

An Illustrated History of Hook-on Aircraft and Their Dirigible Motherships

by William Wolf

You’re looking up at an airship in flight, little aircraft buzzing around it. You blink; they’re gone! Before the U.S. Navy perfected that trick there was an already long history of exploring how to launch one aircraft from another, perchance to also capture it again.

Midnight Flyboys

by Bruce Henderson

Operation Carpetbagger was a covert op and remained classified for half a century but then received a Presidential Unit Citation and Congressional Gold Medals for the outsize contributions to the war effort.

U-2 Over the Soviet Union

America’s Famous Cold War Spy Plane from a Soviet Perspective

by Dmitry Degtev

What the American military and political leadership thought they got out of the U-2 program is of course exhaustively documented. But how did it look to/from the “other side”? Answers here.

Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War

by Bruce Henderson

Can’t think of anything inspirational this Thanksgiving? Here’s a story of escape and survival against all odds that’ll make you thankful for many things, not least that you were not tested as the protagonist was.

GHOSTS 2026 Calendars, The Great War & A Time Remembered

by Philip Makanna

You’ve had over four decades to discover these splendid calendars; if you still haven’t, read this. And take a photography class.

Spitfire Manual  1940

by Dilip Sarkar (Editor)

From the “Forget-Me-Nots for Fighters” to many other instructional booklets and manuals for pilots of the famous Supermarine Spitfire, this book gathers many oddities not normally seen by outsiders.

Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe in Profile

by Daniel Uhr and Dan Sharp

Building upon earlier, similar books this one introduces new or refined data and interpretations of German jet-propelled military aircraft designs into the record, especially regarding the historical context of their development.

Secret US Proposals of the Cold War: Radical Concepts in Military Aircraft

by Jim Keeshen

A very different look at aircraft proposals: photos of the models and illustrations that were created to demonstrate the ideas to planners and prospective buyers.