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 As heavily armed eight-gun fighters – especially as radar-equipped night fighters – Mosquitos shot down more than 800 enemy aircraft. The Nobel-prize winning nuclear physicist was one of a number of high-value passengers including spies, downed aircrew and even artists on cultural visits who were carried to and from the Swedish capital inside the felt-lined fuselage of the war’s most unlikely airliner. But having chosen wood partly to avoid a shortage of raw materials, there was now concern that supplies of the lightweight balsa that, sandwiched in between plywood, made up the Mosquito’s skin, might run out. Contents: The Biplane Takes Over (Debut of the Albatros D I, D II and introduction of the Jagdstaffeln) - Bloody April (the supremacy of the Albatros D III in April 1917 and beyond) - Maximum Effort (the summer - autumn of 1917 saw the maximum percentage of Albatros D V and D Va at the front) - Kaiserschlacht and beyond (aces who flew Albatros fighters in the March 1918 Offensive and afterwards). Author:

Each made very different and often contradictory demands of an aircraft, but the Mosquito was, perhaps uniquely, successful in all four roles. Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Technical Specifications and Variants - Operational History - Conclusion - Bibliography and Further Reading. Author: After first entering RAF service with a photo reconnaissance unit, the first Mosquito bomber squadron formed a few months later.caption id="attachment_7496" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Night flight captures the solitude and risk of early air mail routes."] [/caption] A classic of aviation literature, the novel Night Flight is heavily based on French aviator and writer Saint-Exupery’s experience of working as an airmail pilot, in the interwar years. The book captures the danger and loneliness of these early commercial pilots, blazing routes in the days before radar, GPS and jet engines. Vulcan 607 – Rowland White 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. They were fortunate that despite the Air Ministry’s scepticism, their efforts enjoyed determined and far-sighted support from

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.In dropping a total of nearly 27,000 tons of bombs on the enemy, Mosquitos suffered fewer losses per thousand sorties than any other aircraft in Bomber Command. 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. In top secret, in the grounds of a moated stately home near St Albans – once home to Charles II’s mistress Nell Gwyn and, later, Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill – de Havilland’s team got to work on their prototype.

Showcases particularly celebrated aircraft - such as the Supermarine Spitfire and Concorde - in beautifully photographed "virtual tour" features 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 Contents: Introduction - Chronology - Design and Development - Technical Specifications - The Strategic Situation - The Combatants - Combat - Statistics and Analysis - Aftermath - Bibliography - Index. Author:When in late 1938, as the prospect of war loomed over Europe, designer Geoffrey de Havilland first suggested the idea of a lightweight twin-engined bomber that relied on high speed rather than defensive gun turrets to protect itself, the Air Ministry told him: “Forget it.” 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. 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. Had the Second World War in the air been decided on aesthetics alone, the RAF would have beaten the Luftwaffe hands-down. The Spitfire fighter had a deadly elegance that outshone its homelier rival, the Messerschmitt 109. In monumental majesty, the Lancaster dwarfed anything in the enemy’s bomber fleet. And as for the all-rounders in between, there was nothing that the Germans produced that could hold a candle to the marvellous Mosquito. 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.

Four months later, 105 Squadron spoiled Herman Göring’s big day in Berlin. Geoffrey de Havilland always maintained that simply being the “right size” was a crucial component of any successful aircraft design. With the Mosquito, he’d judged it to perfection. caption id="attachment_7491" align="alignnone" width="166" caption="West with the Night reminds us that flying is not just a man's world."] [/caption] ‘Poetry in flight’ best describes this 1942 memoir from aviatrix Beryl Markham of bush flying in Africa and long-distance flight, which includes her solo flight across the Atlantic. Lyrical and expressive her descriptions of the adventure of flying continue to inspire others, including Boeing test pilot Captain Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, who said Markham's book was 'closest to her heart' in a RAeS lecture. Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter W.E. Johns 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. Air Marshal Wilfred Freeman, the man responsible for research, development and production of new aircraft for the RAF.There were single nights either side of D-Day when Mosquito fighter-bombers would destroy nearly 1,000 separate pieces of German motor transport. To try to ensure it didn’t, an expedition was sent out to explore the jungles of Central America in search of alternative sources of the lightweight wood.