U.S. Army Captain Kimberly N. Hampton was living her dream: flying armed helicopters in combat and commanding D Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, the armed reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division. An all-American girl from a small southern mill town, Kimberly was a top scholar, student body president, ROTC battalion commander, and highly ranked college tennis player. In 1998 she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. Then, driven by determination and ambition, Kimberly rapidly rose through the ranks in the almost all-male bastion of military aviation to command a combat aviation troop. On January 2, 2004, Captain Hampton was flying an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter above Fallujah, Iraq, in support of a raid on an illicit weapons marketplace, searching for an illusive sniper on the rooftops of the city. A little past noon her helicopter was wracked by an explosion. A heat-seeking surface-to-air missile had gone into the exhaust and knocked off the helicopter’s tail boom. The helicopter crashed, killing Kimberly. Kimberly’s Flight is the story of Captain Hampton’s exemplary life. This story is told through nearly fifty interviews and her own e-mails to family and friends, and is entwined with Ann Hampton’s narrative of loving and losing a child. Retired award-winning journalist Anna Simon was been a reporter with The Greenville News in South Carolina for 21 years. She received the South Carolina Press Association’s first place award for Reporting in Depth for 2009, and is a past recipient of multiple awards in education reporting, the press association’s Judson Chapman Award for Community Service, and other news and feature writing awards. Kimberly’s mother, Ann Hampton, first met Anna Simon at the bleakest point in her life, immediately following her daughter’s death, when Ms. Simon wrote a series of stories for The Greenville News about Kimberly’s life and the reaction in the small Southern town of Easley, SC to her death. Ann has traveled twice to Iraq, in 2010, as a Gold Star Mom in a "Hugs for Healing" program sanctioned by the U.S. State Department, where American and Iraqi mothers grieving the deaths of their children worked side-by-side on humanitarian projects, and in 2011 on a humanitarian mission with “Friends of Kurdistan.”

From the origins of net centric warfare in the 1940s, the Stage Plans of the 1950s, and the change of threat from aircraft to the ballistic missile, Battle Flight examines the steps taken to protect the British populace from nuclear Armageddon. Following WWII, Britain's air defences comprised a mix of interceptors and anti-aircraft guns that were tailored to counter mass bomber raids by piston-engine aircraft. These defences were rendered obsolete by the jet engine and the atomic bomb and the search for a cost-effective anti-aircraft system began. Interceptors were the obvious first line of defence and would remain so to this day, but unguided rockets and new surface-to-air guided-weapons (SAGW) were also examined. Wartime advances in guided weapons had ended, the teams dispersed, and the work forgotten, but such weapons were soon prioritized. Defensive weapons required control systems and plans were drawn up to integrate radar, command, control, and interception. These plans (Nucleus, Igloo, Rotor, Ahead, and Linesman) changed radically over a 20-year period, reflecting the rapid advance of technology in the post-war period. The 1960s saw stabilization with the interceptors as the main defence and SAMs to protect the V-bomber bases. All thoughts of ABMs were discarded, as the ballistic missile became the primary deterrent on both sides. By the 1980s the advent of long-range interceptors such as Tornado saw a change in the protection of north Atlantic convoys from Soviet attacks. As the 21st century dawned the spectre of terrorism and airborne threat changed to include the possibility of shooting down hijacked airliners, Britain's air defences diminished to 5 squadrons of Typhoons and the Aster SAMs of the Royal Navy, and Russian Air Force's Blackjacks and Bears still make forays into Britain's air defence zone. Battle Flight provides an in-depth examination of the history of Britain's air defence offering an insight into evolution up to the present day.

The invention of flight represents the culmination of centuries of thought and desire. Kites and rockets sparked our collective imagination. Then the balloon gave humanity its first experience aloft, though at the mercy of the winds. The steerable airship that followed had more practicality, yet a number of insurmountable limitations. But the airplane truly launched the Aerial Age, and its subsequent impact--from the vantage of a century after the Wright Brother's historic flight on December 17, 1903--has been extraordinary. Richard Hallion, a distinguished international authority on aviation, offers a bold new examination of aircraft history, stressing its global roots. The result is an interpretive history of uncommon sweep, complexity, and warmth. Taking care to place each technological advance in the context of its own period as well as that of the evolving era of air travel, this ground-breaking work follows the pre-history of flight, the work of balloon and airship advocates, fruitless early attempts to invent the airplane, the Wright brothers and other pioneers, the impact of air power on the outcome of World War I, and finally the transfer of prophecy into practice as flight came to play an ever-more important role in world affairs, both military and civil. Making extensive use of extracts from the journals, diaries, and memoirs of the pioneers themselves, and interspersing them with a wide range or rare photographs and drawings, Taking Flight leads readers to the laboratories and airfields where aircraft were conceived and tested. Forcefully yet gracefully written in rich detail and with thorough documentation, this book is certain to be the standard reference for years to come on how humanity came to take to the sky, and what the Aerial Age has meant to the world since da Vinci's first fantastical designs.

Control of the air is the foundation for all conventional military operations against an adversary with an air defence capability. In future warfare, will it be possible for Unmanned Combat Air Systems to undertake the tasks and accept most of the risks that, until now, have been the lot of military aviators?

A detailed account of the composition, structure and organization of the First World War German Army has long been needed by English-language readers - this work will fill the gap admirably. In more than 300 pages, the authors examine all aspects of the army. A detailed analytical text is followed by an extensive compendium of order-of-battle data.

Martin and his friends discovered that their world is computer generated and that by altering the code, they could alter reality. They traveled back in time to Medieval England to live as wizards. Almost everything they've done since then has, in one way or another, blown up in their faces.So of course they decide to make dragons. It does not go well.As the wizards struggle to control their creations and protect innocent citizens, they try new things (most of which they don't enjoy), meet new people (most of whom are angry at them), and fight epic battles (most of which they lose).But their biggest challenge may be a young girl who knows that the wizards created the dragons and is determined to make them pay. On her side she has powerful allies, a magical artifact, and a faithful if not particularly helpful dog.Fight and Flight is a rollicking tale of bravery, wonder, love, revenge, greed, discovery, deception, and animal husbandry.

A series of chance encounters leads to a sizzling new romance from the New York Times bestselling author of the On Dublin Street series. The universe is conspiring against Ava Breevort. As if flying back to Phoenix to bury a childhood friend wasn't hell enough, a cloud of volcanic ash traveling from overseas delayed her flight back home to Boston. Her last ditch attempt to salvage the trip was thwarted by an arrogant Scotsman, Caleb Scott, who steals a first class seat out from under her. Then over the course of their journey home, their antagonism somehow lands them in bed for the steamiest layover Ava's ever had. And that's all it was--until Caleb shows up on her doorstep. When pure chance pulls Ava back into Caleb's orbit, he proposes they enjoy their physical connection while he's stranded in Boston. Ava agrees, knowing her heart's in no danger since a) she barely likes Caleb and b) his existence in her life is temporary. Not long thereafter Ava realizes she's made a terrible error because as it turns out Caleb Scott isn't quite so unlikeable after all. When his stay in Boston becomes permanent, Ava must decide whether to fight her feelings for him or give into them. But even if she does decide to risk her heart on Caleb, there is no guarantee her stubborn Scot will want to risk his heart on her....

When Thomas Jefferson wrote his epitaph, he listed as his accomplishments his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia statute of religious freedom, and his founding of the University of Virginia. He did not mention his presidency or that he was second governor of the state of Virginia, in the most trying hours of the Revolution. Dumas Malone, author of the epic six-volume biography, wrote that the events of this time explain Jefferson's "character as a man of action in a serious emergency." Joseph Ellis, author of American Sphinx, focuses on other parts of Jefferson's life but wrote that his actions as governor "toughened him on the inside." It is this period, when Jefferson was literally tested under fire, that Michael Kranish illuminates in Flight from Monticello. Filled with vivid, precisely observed scenes, this book is a sweeping narrative of clashing armies--of spies, intrigue, desperate moments, and harrowing battles. The story opens with the first murmurs of resistance to Britain, as the colonies struggled under an onerous tax burden and colonial leaders--including Jefferson--fomented opposition to British rule. Kranish captures the tumultuous outbreak of war, the local politics behind Jefferson's actions in the Continental Congress (and his famous Declaration), and his rise to the governorship. Jefferson's life-long belief in the corrupting influence of a powerful executive led him to advocate for a weak governorship, one that lacked the necessary powers to raise an army. Thus, Virginia was woefully unprepared for the invading British troops who sailed up the James under the direction of a recently turned Benedict Arnold. Facing rag-tag resistance, the British force took the colony with very little trouble. The legislature fled the capital, and Jefferson himself narrowly eluded capture twice. Kranish describes Jefferson's many stumbles as he struggled to respond to the invasion, and along the way, the author paints an intimate portrait of Jefferson, illuminating his quiet conversations, his family turmoil, and his private hours at Monticello. "Jefferson's record was both remarkable and unsatisfactory, filled with contradictions," writes Kranish. As a revolutionary leader who felt he was unqualified to conduct a war, Jefferson never resolved those contradictions--but, as Kranish shows, he did learn lessons during those dark hours that served him all his life.