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

Apollo VII–XVII

by Heyne, Meter, Phillipson, Steenmeijer

Photos you couldn’t have seen before, and thoughts you probably never thought before about how to photograph Earth from over 200,000 miles away, or the surface of the Moon from 5 ft away.

Supermarine Spitfire V

by Robert Grudzień

More than 44 color profiles of the most successful Spitfire version ever will take advanced scale modelers to a new level.

America’s Round-Engine Airliners

by Craig Kodera and William Pearce

Vibration, noise, roughness, creature comforts—early air travel really was rudimentary. The radial or star engine opened a new chapter and, for a while, was the best technical solution. But in its very advantages (cooling) lay the roots of its obsolescence (drag).

Olympic Airways: A History

by Graham Simons

From weather to political leanings there’s a reason Greece was a factor in the plans of the early civil aviation schemers, and in short order the Greeks stood up a national airline of their own. It struggled then and it struggles today, and this book explains why.

The First Jet Pilot: The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz

by Lutz Warsitz

In just a few short years Warsitz went from fledgling sport flier to chief test pilot at Peenemünde West. What he knew was so valuable that the Russians hauled him off to Siberia after WWII when he wouldn’t spill the beans!

Gustav Mesmer, Flugradbauer

by Stefan Hartmaier (editor)

A trilingual story of a German inventor/artist/poet who wants to fly—by means of a human-powered flying bicycle or strapping wings to his back. Don’t laugh. It’s a sad story. Or is it?

The British Overseas Airways Corporation: A History

by Graham M. Simons

BOAC operated from the 1940s to 1974 and the transition from war- to peacetime, and the resulting new world order are important topics even aside from this book’s airline theme.

The Zeppelin

by Michael Belafi

A new book adds a few new wrinkles to the epic story of a revolutionary idea that ended up loosing traction. The airship idea is not dead but will its time ever really come?

WO Bentley Rotary Aero Engines

by Tom Dine

Yes, we already posted a review of this book here but it wasn’t written by us. The book, and the circumstances of its publication, are important enough to re-review it once more but with more detail.

Inside Marine One

by Ray L’Heureux

From building kit models to ferrying the Chief Executive of the United States, Frenchy L’Heureux’s life in aviation has put him where the front-page news took place, but behind the scenes.

Drone Strike!

by Bill Yenne

Drone activities may be in the news a lot but in fact much remains—and rightly so given their purpose—behind closed doors. Yenne’s book is an excellent primer not only on what drones are capable of but how they fit into the arsenal.