Building on the highly successful A History of U.S. Coast Guard Aviation, this book details all aircraft used since the Coast Guard introduced its air arm in 1916.

This book offers a complete history of the pioneers, planes, and services of U.S. Coast Guard aviation. It covers seven decades of aircraft development, from the early stick and wire seaplanes to today's E2C Hawkeyes, and recounts the human drama of aviators risking their lives in dangerous trial-and-error flight testing, search-and-rescue missions, wartime enemy surveillance, and law enforcement.

Includes list of aviator numbers (names of all those who earned pilots wings, 1916-1996.

Without the support of airlift, the modern American military machine would be brought to a standstill. Since World War II--beginning with the Cold War and continuing up to the present day--the U.S. armed forces have come increasingly to rely upon airlift for mobility. The power to rapidly move and thereafter support a military operation--anywhere in the world, at any time--has become a foundational element of American defense policy. This work provides the reader with a comprehensive historical survey--including technical specifications, drawings, and photographs--of each type of fixed-wing aircraft used by U.S. military forces over a nearly 90-year period to carry out the airlift mission.

The U.S. did not become the world's foremost military air power by accident. The learning curve--World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and more recently the war on terror--has been steep. While climbing this curve, the U.S. has not only produced superior military aircraft in greater numbers than its foes, but has--in due course--out-trained them, too. This book provides a comprehensive historical survey of U.S. military training aircraft, including technical specifications, drawings and photographs of each type of fixed and rotary-wing design used over a 98-year period to accomplish the first step of the learning process: the training of pilots and aircrews.

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.