Air Combat

What was it like to fly a MiG or Mirage in combat over Angola? Most books on the Angolan Bush War, especially those in English, present the South African perspective of events. Now a former MiG-23 Squadron Commander of the Cuban Air Force has collaborated with an ex-SAAF pilot to paint a remarkable new picture of the aerial conflict over Angola in the 1980s. In The MiG Diaries the recollections of Lt-Col Eduardo González Sarría are blended by Lionel Reid with those of air combatants from the Angolan, Cuban and South African air forces. Many are being published for the first time. Using ...

Experience the exciting combat tales of both Allied and Axis pilots around the world during World War II. Wings of War encompasses the World War II air war from late 1939 through 1945 and provides a chronological snapshot not only of famous and significant events from the global air war, but...

July, 1993: Pete Yates is in his early 50s, a career airline pilot who went on strike when a rapacious Wall St. financier raided his airline years before. Now he's out of work and out of money, trying to figure out how to make a living, when he encounters his old U.S. Navy wingman, who now owns a huge vintage warbirds air-show and aircraft trading company. Offered a job as a pilot, Yates swallows his pride and takes the job--and his life takes off in a direction he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams (and as a former Naval Aviation attack pilot with two tours in Vietnam, he has ...

“A GRIPPING CLASSIC. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam War. Dan Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else could.”--Colonel LEO THORSNESS, Wild Weasel pilot and Medal of Honor recipient At the height...

Silver Wing: Code Red Skies is a pulse-pounding, character-driven military suspense novel that brings together six unforgettable tropes: the Fearless Female Pilot (Samantha “Silver” Mercer), the Loyal Mechanic (Dutch, who knows her jet better than anyone), the Tech Genius (Blaze, who can hack or fix anything with a pulse), the By-the-Book Strategist (Lillian, balancing logic and moral lines), the Rogue with a Heart (Jackal, the unpredictable trickster with deadly instincts), and the AI Conscience (Piper, Silver’s voice of logic and silent partner in survival). Each character plays a ...

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.

For more than three decades, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the US Navy’s premier carrier-based, multirole fighter jet. From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.

All Aces, No Jokers: The Wartime Memoirs of an American Fighter Pilot is the must-read first-person account of air combat by one of the most highly decorated, professional, and lethally talented warriors in modern history. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas “Axe” Littleton is a veteran of Just Cause, Desert Storm, Somalia, the No-Fly Zones over Iraq, the Balkan Wars, the Kosovo Air War, Afghanistan, and the second Gulf War. He was highly decorated, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, six Air Medals, and three Aerial Achievement Medals for heroism while logging more than 600 combat hours ...

Pierre Clostermann DFC was one of the oustanding Allied aces of the Second World War. A Frenchman who flew with the RAF, he survived over 420 operational sorties, shooting down scores of enemy aircraft while friends and comrades lost their lives in the deadly skies above Europe. The Big Show, his extraordinary account of the war, has been described as the greatest pilot's memoir of WWII.

With a total of 40 victories, Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War I-and a century later he remains a towering figure in the history of air warfare, renowned for his character, inspirational leadership, organizational genius, development of air-to-air tactics, and impact on aerial doctrine. Paving the way for modern air forces across the world with his pioneering strategies, Boelcke had a dramatic effect on his contemporaries. The famed Red Baron's mentor, instructor, squadron commander, and friend, he exerted a tremendous influence upon the German air force.

Since their introduction, aircraft have become a key aspect of any conflict between nations. Aircraft are used to provide reconnaissance, transportation, airborne radar, electronic jamming, air-to-air combat and of course ground attack. Ground attack is performed by a range of aircraft types encompassing strategic (bombers), tactical bombers (fighter-bombers) and helicopters. Ground attack weapons launched from these aircraft include guided and unguided bombs, rockets, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and cannon fire. Ground targets include enemy AFV’s, artillery ...

…Ben Het has tanks in the wire! “Hawk Claw is engaging,” the pilot reports firing the first TOW missile ever from a helicopter in combat. Fire Base Delta had already been over run and Fire Base Charlie was fighting for its life. How much would fall before the North Vietnamese army was knocking on the doors of the key city of Kontum? This was the third phase of the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive Campaign of 1972. Standing across the country between them and the fall of Saigon was a poorly led South Vietnamese Army, brave South Vietnamese soldiers, and US Advisors. How much ground ...

An account of the over 450 combat missions flown by the author in the Vietnam War. The author is a highly decorated fighter pilot having been awarded three Silver Stars, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, and the Purple Heart. His account of being shot over North Vietnam and living to tell will keep you on the edge of your seat. His stories are filled with dialogue bringing the combat action directly to the reader. His method to overcome boredom was most unconventional as he flew 28 additional missions in helicopters and FAC aircraft. His account of visiting a Special Forces base where he ...

This insightful chronicle takes listeners inside the experiences of America's fighter pilots and bomber crews, an incredible assortment of men who, in nearly four years of warfare all over the globe, suffered over 120,000 casualties, with over 40,000 killed. Their stories span the Earth, into every corner of the combat theaters in both Europe and the Pacific. And the aircraft explored are as varied, tough, and legendary as the men who flew them.

A lone squadron. A frozen front. And the might of the Soviet Union overhead. When Stalin’s bombers strike without warning, Finnish pilot Veikko Niemi leads his understrength squadron into the teeth of the Soviet onslaught. With nothing but outdated Fokker D.XXIs and frozen courage, Niemi launches daring intercepts against overwhelming odds. But a new threat emerges, Colonel Kozlov, a methodical Soviet commander who turns the air war into a calculated game of attrition. As the temperature plummets and tensions rise, Veikko must adapt or watch his men vanish into the frost and fire. Blood ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The definitive history of combat aviation and fighter aircraft, from World War I to present INCLUDES 32 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND 12 MAPS Lords of the Sky is the “dramatic, fast-paced, and definitive"" (Michael Korda) history of fighter pilots and aircraft and their...

“Viper Pilot is fantastic….A great read!” —Dale Brown, former USAF Captain and New York Times bestselling author of A Time for Patriots Action-packed and breathtakingly authentic, Viper Pilot is the electrifying memoir of one of the most decorated F-16 pilots in American history: U.S...

David R. “Buff” Honodel was a cocky young man with an inflated self-image when he arrived in 1969 at his base in Udorn, Thailand. His war was not in Vietnam; it was a secret one in the skies of a neighboring country almost unknown in America, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail that fed soldiers and supplies from North Vietnam into the South. Stateside he learned the art of flying the F-4, but in combat, the bomb-loaded fighter handled differently, targets shot back, and people suffered. Inert training ordnance was replaced by lethal weapons.

On 13 July 2008, nine American Soldiers perished while fighting a pitched battle in the village of Wanat in Afghanistan's Waygal Valley. On that day the men of Company C, 2d Battalion, 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment, endured four hours of intense close-quarters combat and mounting casualties. The contingent of 49 United States and 24 Afghan National Army Soldiers valiantly defended their small outpost against a coordinated attack by a determined insurgent force armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.