Excellent pictorial history of famed aircraft and aviation memorabilia depicted in 90 rare photos and illustrations: replica of Lilienthal Glider (1894), the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny, America's most famous WW I airplane; Republic's P-47 Thunderbolt (1945), Grumman's Mobile Lunar Laboratory (Molab, 1964), and many other planes, spacecraft, rockets and missiles. Extensive captions.

This is perhaps the finest collection of cockpit photographs in existence. The Museum (NASM) holds the world's premier collection of historic aircraft, but visitors to the museum must maintain a respectful distance. In At the Controls, NASM photographers Eric Long and Mark Avino use creative lighting techniques and an extremely wide-angle lens mounted on a short-bodied, large-format architectural camera to duplicate the sensation of actually being at the controls inside the cockpit of 45 legendary aircraft. The reader experiences a pilot's-eye view of the cockpit. Among the 45 featured aircraft are these history-making planes: Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer Blériot Type XI Fokker D.VII Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VII Focke-Wulf Fw 190F-8 Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik Messerschmitt Me 262 Boeing B-29 Enola Gay Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse Project Apollo Lunar Module Space Shuttle Columbia

Long Island is a natural airfield. The central area of Long Island's Nassau County--known as the Hempstead Plains--is the only natural prairie east of the Allegheny Mountains. The island itself is ideally placed at the eastern edge of the United States, adjacent to its most populous city. In fact, nowhere else in America has so much aviation activity been confined to such a relatively small geographic area. The many record-setting and historic flights and the aviation companies that were developed here have helped place Long Island on the aviation map. Through one hundred years of aviation history, Long Island has been home to eighty airfields. From military airfields to seaplane bases and commercial airports, the island has had more airports than any other place of similar geographic proportion in America. Most have vanished without a trace, but a handful remains. Long Island Airports is the first book to document the pictorial history of these airports and airfields.

"This is the first book to tell the fascinating 80-year history of today's gyroplane and its antecedent, the Autogiro. Charnov explains that the near-eclipse of the Autogiro was caused by a potent combination of bad luck, the impact of the Great Depression and World War II and egregious business decisions. Only by understanding the amazing manner in which this aviation technologies has persisted and evolved can one fully understand the basis for its future. In contrast to the fate of the Autogiro, the gyroplane's unfolding story is characterized by successful business models, effective decision making, and the emergence of cutting-edge technology.

Over 250 rare photographs depict one of the greatest industrial feats of all time: America's massive production of World War II fighters and bombers. An introduction and captions outline the history.

During the first fifty years of American aviation, Long Island was at the center of aircraft innovation and flight. There were more aircraft manufacturers and airports located on Long Island than in any other part of the United States. Due to the extraordinarily high volume of air traffic, Long Island also led the country-if not the world-in aircraft crashes. Long Island Aircraft Crashes: 1909-1959 portrays the daring flights, accidents, and mishaps of pioneer pilots, and the conditions that contributed to many crashes. Long Island ultimately saw the earliest air-traffic control systems, airport lighting, aviation weather reports, paved runways, and professional flight schools. Long Island Aircraft Crashes: 1909-1959 contains captivating images from Mitchel Field and Roosevelt Field, the two most active airfields on Long Island. In addition to airfield activity, this book illustrates some of the first experimental flights over Hempstead Plains; military training at Hazelhurst Field; the L.W.F. Owl bomber (the largest landplane of its time); the world's first instrument-guided flight; and Amelia Earhart posing with the new Sperry Gyropilot.

"Space Age Adventures is a guidebook which combines short entertaining stories from spaceflight history with more than 100 adventurous activities/sites across the U.S., including outdoor astronaut training locations, air & space museums, and historic sites for space enthusiasts to visit"--

Over 250 rare photographs chronicle flight attempts in lighter-than-air balloons, U.S. Navy's "flying boats," Lindbergh's celebrated flight to Paris in 1927, Amelia Earhart's ill-fated circumnavigation attempt in 1937, and much more.

They're all here--every X-bomber and X-fighter since 1942. On October 2, 1942, the Bell XP-59 Airacomet soared up and away from present-day Edwards AFB, launching the US Army Air Forces into the Jet Age. In the several decades since, hundreds of new variations of experimental and test turbojet-powered bombers and fighters--X-bombers and X-fighters--have taken explosive flight. These aircraft blazed a trail leading to today's B-2 Stealth Bomber and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Big Book of X-Bombers & X-Fighters showcases all of the USAF jet-powered X-bombers and X-fighters that have flown since 1942--more than 90 in all, including the alphabet soup of their variants. From experimental to prototype service bombers and fighters--from the XB-43 to the B-2A and the XP-59A to the F-35A--they're all here, with their inside stories revealed. Some of these aircraft were further developed. Others were canceled. All stretched the performance and design envelopes. More than 250 photos illustrate all of these experimental aircrafts' cutting-edge features and zeroes in on histories of their design, flight testing, and weapons testing. Specification tables detailing performance, design, and armaments help round out this compendium of information on truly groundbreaking aviation designs. X-bombers and X-fighters in The Big Book of X-Bombers & X-Fighters include: Bell P-59 Airacomet Republic P/F-84 Thunderjet Douglas B-43 Jetmaster North American B-45 Tornado Boeing B-47 Stratojet Curtiss P/F-87 Blackhawk McDonnell P/F-85 Goblin Convair P/F-92 "Dart" Northrop F-17 Cobra Boeing B-1 Lancer And all the rest! Specifications included for each aircraft include: Length Height Wingspan Empty weight Gross weight Maximum range Ceiling Maximum speed Armament In addition, veteran aviation author Steve Pace shows readers some of the designs that could have been and offers a peek into what might be lurking in the future, making this the definitive guide to USAF jet-powered experimental aircraft!

For five weeks—from April 14 to May 21, 1927—the world held its breath while fourteen aviators took to the air to capture the $25,000 prize that Raymond Orteig offered to the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean without stopping. Joe Jackson's Atlantic Fever is about this race, a milestone in American history whose story has never been fully told. Delving into the lives of the big-name competitors—the polar explorer Richard Byrd, the French war hero René Fonck, the millionaire Charles Levine, and the race's eventual winner, the enigmatic Charles Lindbergh—as well as those whose names have been forgotten by history (such as Bernt Balchen, Stanton Wooster, and Clarence Chamberlin), Jackson brings a completely fresh and original perspective to the race to conquer the Atlantic. Atlantic Fever opens for us one of those magical windows onto a moment when the nexus of technology, innovation, character, and spirit led so many contenders from different parts of the world to be on the cusp of the exact same achievement at the exact same time.