"Based on pre-war research and captured German wartime technology, a number of French jet, ramjet and rocket-powered aircraft reached at least prototype form. Vertical take-off, variable geometry wings and even flying boat concepts were among some of the most radical aircraft designs, studies and projects ever produced anywhere in the world. Driven by the need to equip its air forces, compete in export markets and catch-up with its international competitors, French companies gave free reign to their designers to come up with radical and unconventional airctaft."--Jacket.

In 1963, Eugen Sanger, became head of the Eurospace organization which promoted the 'AeroSpace Transporter'. In response to a Eurospace call, aircraft makers in France, Germany and UK designed recoverable, winged spacecraft. From 1964 to 1970 the French government led studies to evaluate the feasibility of the concept. Those studies, under the leadership of the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), coalesced into the Hermes spaceplane which was then adopted by the European Space Agency. In parallel, Germany and UK proposed fully recoverable designs while other countries, including Japan, India and Russia came to CNES to share ideas about spaceplane design. Unfortunately Hermes was never launched and by 1994 was abandoned after many alternative propositions were discussed. This book relates the story of these remarkable concepts, crossovers between aircraft and spacecraft beginning with the 'antipodal bomber' of 1944 and continuing to Aerospatiale STS-2000 project through the Transporteur Aero-Spatial, VERAS, AW Pyramid, Bumerang, Sanger II, HOTOL, Hermes, and Taranis. Non-European projects like Dyna-Soar, Hyperplane, HOPE, and MAKS are also be covered. It provides a fascinating and detailed account of these projects which, being half-way between aircraft and spacecraft, have hitherto often been therefore often neglected by aviation writers and historians.

A large number of fighter projects have been drawn by British companies over the last fifty years, but very few have turned into hardware, and very little has been published about these fascinating "might-have-beens". This book makes extensive use of previously unpublished, primary-source material-much recently declassified. It gives an insight into a secret world where the public has had little idea of what was going on, while at the same time presenting a coherent nationwide picture of fighter development and evolution. Particular emphasis is placed on tender design competitions and some of the events that led to certain aircraft either being canceled or produced. Some of the many and varied types included are the Hawker P.1103/P.1136/P.1121 series, and the Fairey "Delta III". The book includes many illustrations, plus specially commissioned renditions of "might-have-been" types in contemporary markings.

Period drawings, promotional art, photographs of prototype aircraft, mock-ups, wind tunnel and promotional models are all combined to present, for the first time in the English language, a complete view of French military aircraft design from the Liberation of France to the late twentieth-century.--Publisher.

Among the best-selling aviation titles of recent years have been Midland's Lutwaffe and British Secret Projects series. Soviet secret projects now come under the spotlight. This first volume covers bomber concepts from the various design bureaus from the 1940s onwards. Many unusual and sophisticated aircraft are featured in these pages, allowing comparisons between what the Soviets were working on and what was being produced in the West during that period.

Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.