The story of Frank Whittle – RAF pilot, mathematician of genius, inventor of the jet engine and British hero. 'Wonderful' David Edgerton, TLS 'A fascinating account' Aeroplane Monthly 'Casts new light on the intense, heroic character of Frank Whittle' Leo McKinstry '[A] thorough dissection of the evolution of the jet engine... I recommend this mighty tome unreservedly' Journal of Aeronautical History 'A long overdue corrective of an extraordinary man' James Hamilton-Paterson 'A fine, deeply researched book' Military History Monthly In 1938, a thirty-one-year-old RAF pilot and engineer named Frank Whittle – given special leave to pursue his own startlingly original concept of flight – presented the Air Ministry with a written proposal for a revolutionary jet-powered fighter aircraft. A ready response might have changed the course of history, but Whittle got no reply. In this gripping and insightful biography, Duncan Campbell-Smith charts Whittle's success at building a pre-war jet engine against all the odds – and tracks his desperate struggle to have it launched into active service against Hitler's Luftwaffe. It arrived too late – but nonetheless transformed the future of aviation.

Nominated as Best Military History Book 2013 in the prestigious journal Air Power History, published by the US Air Force Historical Foundation The events in Jet Age Man took place during the early Cold War, an era that will go down as a period when civilization teetered on the edge of the abyss. To some, nuclear deterrence appeared as utter madness, and was in fact commonly referred to as M.A.D. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction provoked protests and marches, and the architect of M.A.D, General Curtis LeMay, became a symbol of madness himself. Raised during those turbulent times, most contemporary historians conclude that we were lucky to have survived. What they fail recognize is that for LeMay and the thousands of Cold War warriors who fought and won while serving in the Strategic Air Command, the proof of concept lies not in the "what if?" but in the reality, "what did." Historically, M.A.D. succeeded where appeasement, diplomacy and even hot wars failed. When The Wall came down, strength, not weakness, had prevailed. Most of this story takes place in the Cold War trenches of the Strategic Air Command. It is about those who served and the many who died, told by someone who, as a young man, literally held the fate of all mankind within reach of a switch. More particularly, this is a story of man's interaction with two bombers that changed the course of political history, and were perhaps the most influential aircraft in the annals of aircraft development. The author piloted and instructed in both the B-47 and the B-52, starting out as a copilot in the B-47, then aircraft commander and finally, instructor pilot in both aircraft. Jet Age Man chronicles his fifteen-year relationship with the B-47 and the aircraft the B-47 became, the B-52--a bomber still in service today.

"This new edition of MYTHOLOGIES is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic, Roland Barthes's most emblematic work"--

No aircraft ever captured the curiosity & fascination of the public like the SR-71 Blackbird. Nicknamed "The Sled" by those few who flew it, the aircraft was shrouded in secrecy from its inception. Entering the U.S. Air Force inventory in 1966, the SR-71 was the fastest, highest flying jet aircraft in the world. Now for the first time, a Blackbird pilot shares his unique experience of what it was like to fly this legend of aviation history. Through the words & photographs of retired Major Brian Shul, we enter the world of the "Sled Driver." Major Shul gives us insight on all phases of flying, including the humbling experience of simulator training, the physiological stresses of wearing a space suit for long hours, & the intensity & magic of flying 80,000 feet above the Earth's surface at 2000 miles per hour. SLED DRIVER takes the reader through riveting accounts of the rigors of initial training, the gamut of emotions experienced while flying over hostile territory, & the sheer joy of displaying the jet at some of the world's largest airshows. Illustrated with rare photographs, seen here for the first time, SLED DRIVER captures the mystique & magnificence of this most unique of all aircraft.

Tracing the remarkable history of a certain kind of flying machine—from the rocket belt to the jet belt to the flying platform and all the way to Yves Rossy's 21st-century free flights using a jet-powered wing—this historical account delves into the technology that made these devices possible and the reasons why they never became commercial successes on a mass scale. These individual lift devices, as they were blandly labeled by the government men who financed much of their development, answered man's desire to simply step outside and take flight. No runways, no wings, no pilot's license were required. But the history of the jet pack did not follow its expected trajectory and the devices that were thought to become as commonplace as cars have instead become one of the most overpromised technologies of all time. This fascinating account profiles the inventors and pilots, the hucksters and cheats, and the businessmen and soldiers who were involved with the machines, and it tells a great American story of a technology whose promise may yet, one day, come to fruition.

A fresh, unique insider’s view of what it’s like to be a woman aviator in today’s US Navy—from pedicures to parachutes, friendship to firefights. Caroline Johnson was an unlikely aviation candidate. A tall blonde debutante from Colorado, she could have just as easily gone into fashion or filmmaking, and yet she went on to become an F/A-18 Super Hornet Weapons System Officer. She was one of the first women to fly a combat mission over Iraq since 2011, and one of the first women to drop bombs on ISIS. Jet Girl tells the remarkable story of the women fighting at the forefront in a military system that allows them to reach the highest peaks, and yet is in many respects still a fraternity. Johnson offers an insider’s view on the fascinating, thrilling, dangerous and, at times, glamorous world of being a naval aviator. This is a coming-of age story about a young college-aged woman who draws strength from a tight knit group of friends, called the Jet Girls, and struggles with all the ordinary problems of life: love, work, catty housewives, father figures, make-up, wardrobe, not to mention being put into harm’s way daily with terrorist groups such as ISIS and world powers such as Russia and Iran. Some of the most memorable parts of the book are about real life in training, in the air and in combat—how do you deal with having to pee in a cockpit the size of a bumper car going 600 miles an hour? Not just a memoir, this book also aims to change the conversation and to inspire and attract the next generation of men and women who are tempted to explore a life of adventure and service.

The essays in Moving Modernisms: Motion, Technology, and Modernity, written by renowned international scholars, open up the many dimensions and arenas of modernist movement and movements: spatial, geographical and political: affective and physiological; temporal and epochal; technological, locomotive and metropolitan; aesthetic and representational. Individual essays explore modernism's complex geographies, focusing on Anglo-European modernisms while also engaging with the debates engendered by recent models of world literatures and global modernisms. From questions of space and place, the volume moves to a focus on movement and motion, with topics ranging from modernity and bodily energies to issues of scale and quantity. The final chapters in the volume examine modernist film and the moving image, and travel and transport in the modern metropolis. 'Movement is reality itself', the philosopher Henri Bergson wrote: the original and illuminating essays in Moving Modernisms point in new ways to the realities, and the fantasies, of movement in modernist culture.