This first volume of German Fighter Aces trace the story of the Luftwaffe's day fighter arm (der Tagjagd) from its inception to 1942.

A fully illustrated account of the Day Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe from 1942 to 1945.

While initally labeled as a troublesome aircraft, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver went on to be noted for striking more Japanese targets than any other US Navy dive bomber. Despite this, the Helldiver was to be the last of a long line of US Navy dive bombers. The development, production, and combat use of the many variations of the Helldiver are ......

World War II saw the development of the heavy bomber as a decisive weapon which, in sufficient numbers, could overcome defensive fighters and guns and lay waste to strategic targets. The addition of nuclear weapons to the bomber's armament made it even more formidable, and by the late 1940s, US planners saw the growth of a Soviet nuclear-armed ......

At Hatfield Aerodrome de Havilland created the WW2 Mosquito, the first multi role combat aircraft. De Havilland companies pioneered turbojet development, leading to the Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner. De Havilland developed guided missiles and the Blue Streak rocket. The DH 108 was the first aircraft exceed Mach 1 outside the ......

"Germany's air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilise this new form of propulsion. Rocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them."

"When it appeared in the skies over Europe in 1941, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A was the best fighter in the world. It was more than a match for the best Spitfires the RAF could field and began shooting them down in ever-increasing numbers. Only the introduction of the Spitfire IX with its two-stage supercharged Merlin overturned its supremacy. "

An illustrated study of the colours and markings on Swedish bomber aircraft deployed before and during World War II and in the early 1950s.

Even today, almost eighty years after its first flight, the North American P-51 Mustang remains one of the most famous and recognisable aircraft in the world. Nimble and fast, qualities that lead the Mustang to be used even today in air races, the aircraft was forged in battle. This, the second of two volumes on this iconic aircraft, explores the ......

The P-40E Warhawk is often viewed as one of the less successful American fighter designs of World War II, but in 1942 the aircraft was all that was available to the USAAC in-theatre. Units equipped with the aircraft were duly forced into combat against the deadly A6M2 Zero-sen, which had already earned itself a near-mythical reputation following ......

"Dozens of top secret bomber designs were drawn up by the Germans during the Second World War, including gigantic flying wings, sleek jet bombers, asymmetrical bombers with the cockpit and weapons turrets on the ends of their wings and even enormous carriers for single-seat suicide bombers."

Packed full of unique material and first-hand accounts from the archives of the Imperial War Museum, it tells of the men and women who won the Battle of Britain in that fateful summer, at home and in the air.

The B-17 Flying Fortress is one of the most iconic aircraft in aviation history. Through a broad range of photos gathered from around the world, this book, the first of a two-volume series, chronicles the design, development, and wartime use of the early models of the Flying Fortress, from the ill-fated experimental model 299 through the B-17D, ......

In the years leading up to World War II, the Italian government encouraged its aviation companies to develop innovative aircraft to meet the needs of the pre-WW2 Italian air force, the Regia Aeronautica . This book examines the conception, development and sometimes the construction and testing of some of these aircraft.

Boulton Paul has been one of the great innovators of British aviation. They built more Camels than Sopwiths, the first all-steel airframe, the largest aircraft ever built in Britain, the first with a power-operated gun turret, the famous Defiant, the first single-engine turboprop, and are now world leaders in power control units and fly-by-wire.

Over the past 77 years, histories of the Battle of Britain have consistently portrayed the feats of 'The Few' (as they were immortalized in Churchill's famous speech) as being responsible for the RAF's victory in the epic battle. However, this is only part of the story. The results of an air campaign cannot be measured in terms of territory ......

Dan Sharp analyses Germany's last-gasp WW2 Volksj ger jet fighter programme.

"RAF Second World War Fighters in Profile features more than 200 highly detailed profiles of 15 different aircraft types flown by the Royal Air Force between 1939 and 1945."

Projects and plans to alter and improve Germany's infamous WW2 jet fighter - the Me 262.

The original dive-bomber, the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, profiled by Luftwaffe expert Andy Saunders.

Designed both as a military and civil aircraft, the Dornier Do 17 'Flying Pencil', so called because of its slender fuselage, was one of three twin-engined medium bombers in service with the Luftwaffe at the start of the Second World War.

An original, 360-degree re-telling of the Battle of Britain through 18 of the iconic (and some less well-known) aircraft and the pilots who flew them - British, Polish, New Zealander, German, Danish.

Founded in 1925 in Warnem nde, Arado-Flugzeugwerke, from the outset, produced civil aircraft as well as developing prototypes for the clandestine armament programme of the Reichswehr. From 1933 when the licensed production of military aircraft commenced, the factory also built a number of their own designs.

This book covers the period between the creation in 1936 of Fighter Command and the end of WWII. It purports to demonstrate how a dangerously outmoded structure was transformed through the impetus of a feral aerial conflict into an operational force that effectively challenged and finally helped bring about the Luftwaffe's comprehensive demise.

A vivid and insightful account of the early World War Two air war from a bomber pilot's perspective.

"As British and American forces closed in from the west, the Russians pushed in hard from the east, and the RAF and USAAF bombed Germany every night and day, the beleaguered Luftwaffe went all-out in a last effort to defend the Fatherland during the last months of the Second World War."

Soviet bombers were a varied lot during the Second World War, ranging from single-engined biplanes such as the 1920's era Polikarpov U-2 to the excellent and modern twin-engined Tu-2 medium bomber.

The Avro Lancaster was the Royal Air Force's main four-engine bomber in World War II. Its superb design, overall performance, and load-carrying capacity proved key factors in successfully prosecuting the nocturnal bombing offensive against Hitler's industrial and military base. With its ability to carry up to 16,000 pounds in explosives and ......

The Bf 109 E "Emil" entered service in 1938. The aircraft's DB 601 engine transformed its performance, making the Messerschmitt fighter one of the most capable anywhere in the world at the time. After seeing action late in the Spanish Civil War, the Emil was Germany's premier fighter aircraft during the early years of World War II, seeing action ......

Since the end of World War II, the strategic bombing of Germany has inspired numerous studies, countless books and several documentary films, and it is not surprising. With more than one million tons of bombs dropped, close to 300,000 civilians killed, 700,000 wounded and in excess of 3,500,000 industrial and residential structures destroyed, the ......

Photographic history of the German, American, British, Soviet and French jet bombers of the 1940s and early 1950s.

An unusual perspective on the first Blitz, being seen from the German point of view.

Under the Lend-Lease agreement with the US during WWII, the Soviet Union received large quantities of war materiel, including many aircraft; the Bell P-39 Airacobra takes a special place among them. The P-39 was dismissed as hardly suitable for combat both by the US and England, who turned it over in large numbers to the USSR. Soviet pilots had ......

Told for the first time, this is the epic story of the Milne Bay campaign of 1942 - which saw Japanese land forces suffer their first defeat of the war - and has properly been called the RAAF's forgotten finest hour.

Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Darwin was mauled by a massive Japanese attack. Without a single fighter to defend Australian soil, the Australian government made a special appeal to Britain for Spitfires. A year later the Spitfire VC-equipped No 1 Fighter Wing, RAAF, faced the battle-hardened 202nd Kokutai of the IJNAF, equipped with A6M2 ......