Put your pressure suit on and strap yourself in for a Mach 3 ride! Former SR-71 Wing Commander Rich Graham tells the amazing inside story of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Graham provides a detailed look at the entire SR-71 story beginning with his application to be an SR pilot through commanding an entire wing.

This book is packed with first-hand stories from the author and his fellow crewmembers as they tell not only about their incredible missions selected and trained, how the aircraft operates, how the program was run, and the details of their everyday lives.

Over the last few decades, both the aeronautics and space disciplines have greatly influenced advances in controls, sensors, data fusion and navigation. Many of those achievements that made the word “aerospace” synonymous with “high–tech” were enabled by innovations in guidance, navigation and control. Europe has seen a strong trans-national consolidation process in aerospace over the last few decades. Most of the visible products, like commercial aircraft, fighters, helicopters, satellites, launchers or missiles, are not made by a single country – they are the fruits of cooperation. No European country by itself hosts a specialized guidance, navigation and controls community large enough to cover the whole spectrum of disciplines. However, on a European scale, mutual exchange of ideas, concepts and solutions is enriching for all. The 1st CEAS Specialist Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control is an attempt to bring this community together. This book is a selection of papers presented at the conference. All submitted papers have gone through a formal review process in compliance with good journal practices. The best papers have been recommended by the reviewers to be published in this book.

From the ancient Greek and Roman origins of human intelligence and its use in the Catholic church to Francis Walsingham's Elizabethan secret service to the birth of the surveillance state in today's digital hi-tech age, Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, author of the highly successful Military Intelligence Blunders, gives an extraordinarily broad and wide-reaching perspective on espionage and intelligence, providing an up-to-date analysis of its importance of intelligence and in the recent past. Drawing upon a variety of sources, ranging from first-hand accounts to his own personal experience, Hughes-Wilson covers everything from undercover agents to photographic reconnaissance to today's much misunderstood cyber welfare.Authoritative and analytical, Hughes-Wilson searches for hard answers and scrutinizes why crucial intelligence is so often ignored, misunderstood, or spun by politicians and seasoned generals alike. From yesterday's spies to tomorrow's cyber world, The Secret State is a fascinating and thought­-provoking history of this ever­-changing and ever­-important subject.

This book is a professional military-intelligence officer's and a controversial insider's view of some of the greatest intelligence blunders of recent history. It includes the serious developments in government misuse of intelligence in the recent war with Iraq. Colonel John Hughes-Wilson analyses not just the events that conspire to cause disaster, but why crucial intelligence is so often ignored, misunderstood or spun by politicians and seasoned generals alike. This book analyses: how Hitler's intelligence staff misled him in a bid to outfox their Nazi Party rivals; the bureaucratic bungling behind Pearl Harbor; how in-fighting within American intelligence ensured they were taken off guard by the Viet Cong's 1968 Tet Offensive; how over confidence, political interference and deception facilitated Egypt and Syria's 1973 surprise attack on Israel; why a handful of marines and a London taxicab were all Britain had to defend the Falklands; the mistaken intelligence that allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power until the second Iraq War of 2003; the truth behind the US failure to run a terrorist warning system before the 9/11 WTC bombing; and how governments are increasingly pressurising intelligence agencies to 'spin' the party-political line.

"Using interviews, NASA oral histories, and recently declassified material, [this book] reveals the dramatic untold story of the first space shuttle and the dedicated people who brought the United States into the next stage of space exploration"--Dust jacket flap.

On December 22, 1964, at a small, closely guarded airstrip in the desert town of Palmdale, California, Lockheed test pilot Bob Gilliland stepped into a strange-looking aircraft and roared into aviation history. Developed at the super-secret Skunk Works, the SR-71 Blackbird was a technological marvel. In fact, more than a half century later, the Mach 3-plus titanium wonder, designed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, remains the world's fastest jet. It took a test pilot with the right combination of intelligence, skill, and nerve to make the first flight of the SR-71, and the thirty-eight-year-old Gilliland had spent much of his life pushing the edge. In Speed one of America's greatest test pilots collaborates with acclaimed journalist Keith Dunnavant to tell his remarkable story: How he was pushed to excel by his demanding father. How a lucky envelope at the U.S. Naval Academy altered the trajectory of his life. How he talked his way into U.S. Air Force fighters at the dawn of the jet age, despite being told he was too tall. How he made the conscious decision to trade the security of the business world for the dangerous life of an experimental test pilot, including time at the clandestine base Area 51, working on the Central Intelligence Agency's Oxcart program. The narrative focuses most intently on Gilliland's years as the chief test pilot of the SR-71, as he played a leading role in the development of the entire fleet of spy planes while surviving several emergencies that very nearly ended in disaster. Waging the Cold War at 85,000 feet, the SR-71 became an unrivaled intelligence-gathering asset for the U.S. Air Force, invulnerable to enemy defenses for a quarter century. Gilliland's work with the SR-71 defined him, especially after the Cold War, when many of the secrets began to be revealed and the plane emerged from the shadows--not just as a tangible museum artifact but as an icon that burrowed deep into the national consciousness. Like the Blackbird itself, Speed is a story animated by the power of ambition and risk-taking during the heady days of the American Century.

Jerry Thigpen's study on the history of the Combat Talon is the first effort to tell the story of this wonderfully capable machine. This weapons system has performed virtually every imaginable tactical event in the spectrum of conflict and by any measure is the most versatile C-130 derivative ever produced. First modified and sent to Southeast Asia (SEA) in 1966 to replace theater unconventional warfare (UW) assets that were limited in both lift capability and speed the Talon I quickly adapted to theater UW tasking including infiltration and resupply and psychological warfare operations into North Vietnam. After spending four years in SEA and maturing into a highly respected UW weapons system the Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) chose the Combat Talon to lead the night low-level raid on the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay. Despite the outcome of the operation the Talon I cemented its reputation as the weapons system of choice for long-range clandestine operations. In the period following the Vietnam War United States Air Force (USAF) special operations gradually lost its political and financial support which was graphically demonstrated in the failed Desert One mission into Iran. Thanks to congressional supporters like Earl Hutto of Florida and Dan Daniel of Virginia funds for aircraft upgrades and military construction projects materialized to meet the ever-increasing threat to our nation. Under the leadership of such committed hard-driven officers as Brenci Uttaro Ferkes Meller and Thigpen the crew force became the most disciplined in our Air Force. It was capable of penetrating hostile airspace at night in a low-level mountainous environment covertly to execute any number of unconventional warfare missions.

The currency is fame, and it’s bigger than money, more desired than power. Each season American Idol delivers on a promise whose epic scope is unparalleled in the annals of competition: to take an unknown dreamer from the middle of America and turn him or her into a genuine star. It has become not only the biggest show on television, but the biggest force in all of entertainment; its alumni dominate the recording charts and Broadway, win Academy Awards, and sweep up Grammys. In fact, American Idol has reshaped the very idea of celebrity. But it didn't start out that way. When the little singing contest debuted as a summer replacement on the U.S. airwaves, it was packed between reruns and low-cost filler. The promise that it would find America's next pop star produced a hearty round of guffaws from the country's media critics. Now, some ten years and millions of records later, no one is laughing. American Idol: The Untold Story chronicles the triumphs and travails, the harrowing backstage drama and the nail-biting onstage battles that built this revolutionary show. In this revealing book, veteran journalist Richard Rushfield goes deeper inside the circus than any reporter ever has. Candid interviews with Idol alumni, including Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell, shed new light on the show that changed the entertainment industry. And because Rushfield had full access to the people who created the show, starred in it, and kept it atop the pop culture pyramid, this book is the first to take Americans behind the curtain and tell what has really been happening on the world's most watched and speculated-about stage.