Aviation in the 20th Century changed the world forever, and this book portrays that history through art. In addition to more than 60 original fine art paintings of significant moments in aviation history are the dramatic and compelling personal stories of 30 renowned airmen who blazed new trails and accomplished many significant 'firsts' in American skies. Names like Chuck Yeager, Scott Crossfield, Pete Everest, and Joe Engle grace this list. Add pilots like "Fitz" Fulton, Jack Broughton, and "Tex" Johnston, and you have a veritable "Who's Who" of America's greatest aviation legends. This book gives readers a special "behind-the-scenes" look at the actual process of how aviation art is made. Many projects are shown from the very first "back-of-the-napkin" sketch to the complex developmental steps leading to final engineering drawings and finished paintings. If you've ever wondered how aviation art is created, this book not only explains the process in detail, but shows how the pilots contribute to finished artwork as well. Through his award-winning artwork, Mike Machat has documented aviation for the past 40 years in ways never before seen, a process made possible by flying in many of the aircraft he painted, and developing life-long personal friendships with pilots of the aircraft he has preserved for history.

Contains instructions for creating accurate paper replicas of twelve historically important planes.

QF32 is the award winning bestseller from Richard de Crespigny, author of the forthcoming Fly!: Life Lessons from the Cockpit of QF32 On 4 November 2010, a flight from Singapore to Sydney came within a knife edge of being one of the world's worst air disasters. Shortly after leaving Changi Airport, an explosion shattered Engine 2 of Qantas flight QF32 - an Airbus A380, the largest and most advanced passenger plane ever built. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel ripped through the wing and fuselage, creating chaos as vital flight systems and back-ups were destroyed or degraded. In other hands, the plane might have been lost with all 469 people on board, but a supremely experienced flight crew, led by Captain Richard de Crespigny, managed to land the crippled aircraft and safely disembark the passengers after hours of nerve-racking effort. Tracing Richard's life and career up until that fateful flight, QF32 shows exactly what goes into the making of a top-level airline pilot, and the extraordinary skills and training needed to keep us safe in the air. Fascinating in its detail and vividly compelling in its narrative, QF32 is the riveting, blow-by-blow story of just what happens when things go badly wrong in the air, told by the captain himself. Winner of ABIA Awards for Best General Non-fiction Book of the Year 2013 and Indie Awards' Best Non-fiction 2012 Shortlisted ABIA Awards' Book of the Year 2013

Some of greatest dramas of World War II occurred in the skies, where courageous and the tenacious fighter pilots battled in dogfights so fierce that the pilots -- and their planes -- became legends in their own time. Their stories continue to capture the imaginations of World War II buffs and history fans today, as well as countless talented artists who painstakingly recreate their most famous battles in vivid detail, and with staggering accuracy. This fantastic volume presents more than one hundred such works, with detailed historical descriptions of each scene.-- With more than 100 full-color reproductions of works by today's most renowned historical artists-- Archival photographs of legendary Aces and historical descriptions of their planes and their greatest battles enhance each scene presented-- Includes the greatest Aces of both the Allied and Axis forces

A celebration of the aviation art of Michael Turner, containing over sixty paintings including Spitfires, Lancasters, and modern jet and fighter aircraft.