Fighter Planes (Beginners Plus)

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The Mosquito brought to bombing some much-needed accuracy, enabling surgical strikes on key targets that were beyond less gifted aircraft. Its numerous battle honours included some of the RAF’s most celebrated feats, including the daylight raid on Berlin in January 1943, timed to arrive just as Herman Göring was about to make a radio speech to mark the 10th anniversary of the Nazi takeover. The Reichsmarschall was cut off by the sound of 500lb pound bombs exploding across the capital. With the inclusion of these aircraft into their reorganized air force, Germany was able to regain control of the skies by autumn 1916. Along with the later designs they inspired, the Albatros D.I and D.II were instrumental in allowing the Germans to prosecute their domination through 'Bloody April' and well into the summer months that followed.

But the book’s successes are also a tribute to David White’s father, Theodore H White, because his Making of the President books of the 1960s and 70s were some of the most celebrated books of nonfiction of the last century. The Albatros family of fighters were amongst the most effective aircraft employed by the Idlfieg (Imperial German Air Service) for much of World War 1, with the D.III and D.Va being flown by most of the 363 pilots who qualified as aces at some point in their often brief careers. Even though every type of British-American collaboration was crucial, the authors report the remarkable fact that apart from radar, no other important weapon “had been developed by two nations in partnership during the war”. The Albatros was the scourge of the RFC on the Western Front in 1916-17, with pilots of the calibre of von Richthofen, Boelke and Schleich cutting swathes through their opponents. Well over 4000 Albatros scouts were built between 1916 and 1918, and they were also extensively used by the Austro-Hungarians against Russian, Italian and British aircraft until war's end.caption id="attachment_7490" align="alignnone" width="163" caption="Evocative passages in First Light could have been written yesterday."] [/caption] Only published in 2002 this gripping account from an RAF Spitfire pilot of fighting in the Battle of Britain reads as fresh as if was written yesterday. Wellum, who joined 92 Squadron in 1940, was one of the youngest pilots in the Battle and eloquently describes how, to him, one year he was at school, the next he was engaged in a desperate fight with the Luftwaffe above Kent. West with the Night – Beryl Markham The “Tommy gun” the Air Marshal kept in the corner of his office was, it was said, only half in jest, to be used on Beaverbrook if there was any further attempt to pull the plug on the project. caption id="attachment_7492" align="alignnone" width="165" caption="Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter draws heavily on the authors WW1 experience."] [/caption] Biggles might be regarded in some quarters now as hopelessly outdated - a children’s square-jawed flying ace from a different age. However, Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter contains a collection of vignettes that draw heavily on Johns’ own first-hand flying experiences as a pilot flying DH4s with 55 Sqn in WW1, including being shot down and taken prisoner. One wonders of the tales in this book, (including a carrier messenger pigeon going through the propeller) how many of these had happened to the author himself. Propellerhead – Anthony Woodward

In 1916 German aerial domination, once held sway by rotary-engined Fokker and Pfalz E-type wing-warping monoplanes, had been lost to the more nimble French Nieuports and British DH 2s which not only out-flew the German fighters but were present in greater numbers. But this crisp and authoritative book does much more. It includes a mini-history of the birth of aviation, cameos from Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, whose company produced the engine that took the Mustang from good to great, a thorough account of the air war in Europe from 1940 to 1945, and even the essential highlights of the war on the ground.It was equally capable of showing the Luftwaffe’s fighter force a clean pair of heels. Suddenly everyone wanted the Mosquito. Following a remarkable flying display laid on for General Hap Arnold, the head of the United States Army Air Corps, in April 1941, he rated it “‘outstanding” and insisted on taking a set of the blueprints home with him. Ein Jahrhundert Luft- und Raumfahrt in Bremen: Von den frühesten Flugversuchen zum Airbus und zur Ariane Contents: Introduction - Chronology - Design and Development - Technical Specifications - The Strategic Situation - The Combatants - Combat - Statistics and Analysis - Aftermath - Bibliography - Index. Author: As spyplanes they crisscrossed Europe with near impunity gathering critical photographic intelligence that, among other things, helped delay the threat from Hitler’s V-2 ballistic missile. But it was their adoption by BOAC, the British Overseas Airways Corporation – the forerunner to British Airways – that saw the Mossie provide the fourth pillar of the air power quartet.

From September 1916 until late 1918, biplanes from the Albatros firm formed the primary equipment of Germany's fighter forces. Starting with the D I of 1916, these aircraft underwent a continuous programme of development and production to the D Va of late 1917. And, because of its unique wood and glue construction, furniture factories, cabinetmakers and musical instrument manufacturers around Britain were able to put their carpentry-skilled workforces to work helping keep up with demand for de Havilland’s masterpiece.

Albatros Aircraft of WW I (Volume 3) - Bombers, Seaplanes, J-Types

There were single nights either side of D-Day when Mosquito fighter-bombers would destroy nearly 1,000 separate pieces of German motor transport. In the end the Germans would regain air superiority, three squadron commanders - two of whom were considered pinnacles of their respective air forces - would lose their lives, and an up-and-coming pilot (Manfred von Richthofen) would triumph in a legendary dogfight and attain unimagined heights fighting with tactics learned from a fallen mentor. caption id="attachment_7493" align="alignnone" width="161" caption="Flying for fun has never been as funny."] [/caption] Staring grimly at British rain clouds, maintaining your own aircraft, and the fun of wind-in-your-face flying, Propellerhead captures the essence of popular flying in the UK at the grassroots level. The author, keen to impress girls at the start of the book by ‘becoming a pilot’, decides to take up flying and enters the addictive world of the weekend microlight aviators, with gently humorous results. Highly recommended. Bomber – Len Deighton

Comprehensive catalogues highlighting the most important aircraft of each period along with their specifications and unique features The Robert Thelen-led Albatros design bureau set to work on what became the Albatros D.I and D.II and by April 1916, they had developed a sleek yet rugged machine that featured the usual Albatros semi-monocoque wooden construction and employed a 160hp Mercedes D.III engine with power enough to equip the aeroplane with two forward-firing machine guns. In all, 500 D.IIIs and 840 D.III(OAW)s were produced and saw heavy service throughout 1917. As heavily armed eight-gun fighters – especially as radar-equipped night fighters – Mosquitos shot down more than 800 enemy aircraft.

Albatros D-II - Germany's Legendary World War I Fighter

In Mosquito, Rowland White uses the history of these operations to weave stories of courage and fortitude into the story of a great machine. As readers of his previous aviation histories will know, White can convey his great knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, aeroplanes without smothering the reader in technicalities. As a kindred spirit, he can convey the “press on” ethos that drove the men who flew the Wooden Wonder – an enduring characteristic, judging by the recent headlines about 102-year-old former Mossie pilot Colin Bell, who has just abseiled 17 stories down a London hospital to raise money for charity. After first entering RAF service with a photo reconnaissance unit, the first Mosquito bomber squadron formed a few months later. Three months later, in the same week it entered frontline service, a Mosquito recorded a top speed of 433mph at a time when the RAF’s top fighter, the Spitfire V, topped out at 370mph. It’s a book full of small, pleasant surprises. Did you know Gustave Eiffel invented the wind tunnel, and was the first to figure out that “lift is the result of air pressure above the wing”, not below it? Or that Royce and Rolls were an upstairs-downstairs team, Royce having grown up “dirt poor” with “only one year of formal education” while Rolls was an Etonian and the son of an aristocrat? David and Margaret White, a husband and wife team, tell the story of this little plane beautifully, from its gestation in the mind of a German immigrant in California, to the wartime corruption and shortsightedness that delayed the introduction of the Mustang after its successful test flights, to its final triumph in the skies over Europe in 1944 and 1945.