Aviation Biography

September 11, 2001, did not represent the first aerial assault against the American mainland. The first came on July 17,1996, with the downing of TWA Flight 800. This book looks in detail at what people saw and heard on this fateful night. First Strike explains how a determined corps of ordinary...

He pulled off what some deem the crime of the century: skyjacking a commercial jetliner, collecting a ransom of $200,000, parachuting off the aft stairs of the Boeing 727 into the night, and simply disappearing. Since November 1971, “D. B. Cooper”—no one knows his real name or identity—has become a figure of enduring fascination and obsession. The FBI pursued him for over forty years, before closing the case and leaving it unsolved. Unsolved, perhaps, but much admired. D. B. Cooper’s exploit over the skies of the American Northwest has inspired books, films, and endless speculation.

In 1994, twenty-year-old Gunjan Saxena boards a train to Mysore to appear for the selection process of the fourth Short Service Commission (for women) pilot course. Seventy-four weeks of back-breaking training later, she passes out of the Air Force Academy in Dundigal as Pilot Officer Gunjan...

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stone Barrington series tells the story of his own life from childhood to the present, and chronicles the journey that made him the writer he is today. Over the last forty years, Stuart Woods has written more than ninety novels of suspense and...

WINNER OF THE 2021 YALSA AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS! SIX STARRED REVIEWS! Discover the dark side of Charles Lindbergh--one of America's most celebrated heroes and complicated men--in this riveting biography from the acclaimed author of The Family Romanov. First human...

Pancho Barnes was a force of nature, a woman who lived a big, messy, colorful, unconventional life. She ran through three fortunes, four husbands, and countless lovers. She outflew Amelia Earhart, outsmarted Howard Hughes, outdrank the Mexican Army, and out- maneuvered the U.S. government. In...

Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist! The gripping true story of the only women to fly in combat in World War II—from Elizabeth Wein, award-winning author of Code Name Verity In the early years of World War II, Josef Stalin issued an order that made the Soviet Union the first...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Michael O'Leary by Matt Cooper, read by Stephen Hogan. September 2017. Ryanair cancels over 700,000 bookings and its powerful PR juggernaut comes shuddering to a halt. For once, the airline's aggressive and flamboyant CEO, Michael O'Leary, is contrite...

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest, and by far the most powerful, machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, its audacious purpose is to re-create, in a 16.5-mile-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss countryside, the immensely hot and...

From historian and columnist in Leatherneck and Armor magazines, this is the exciting, personal account of a marine fighter squadron in the South Pacific during the critical days of 1943, when the tide turned against the Japanese. Based on individual interviews and wartime documents, this is a thrilling narrative of the marines who lived, and died, during the toughest battles of the entire war.

It all began when we decided to get an airplane. I looked forward to riding with my husband over the countryside and enjoying the scenery. But one day he dropped the bomb. He told me I would need to learn to fly the plane, because, should something happen to him up there, I would have to put it on the ground. I began waking up at night silently screaming because I felt I was flying out of control up there with no way of getting the plane down. We ordered the Ground School materials, and thus the journey began.

On April 12, 1945, a fleet of American B-29 bombers flew toward Japan. Their mission was simple: Stop World War II by burning the cities, factories, and military bases of the Japanese em­pire, thereby forcing an unconditional surrender. But it didn't go as planned. Beyond Valor is one soldier's...

This is the world of the submariner. This is life under pressure. What’s it like to spend three months without sunlight, sharing what little space you have with over a hundred fellow crewmen and more firepower than all the bombs dropped in World War II combined? This is the world of the...

How can one pilot cram so much into a single lifetime? Climb into Captain Terry Reece's cockpit, fasten your seatbelt, and hold on for an exciting journey into the world of aviation. Born to a family of transplanted North Carolinians who moved to Washington State, a young Reece explored the hills of the Pacific Northwest. Hiking in the mountains and being a fire lookout gave him a taste of adventure, but he craved more-and he got it.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns was commissioned at the RAF College Cranwell in 1959 after completing flying training on Piston Provost and Meteor aircraft. Following 9 years service as an operational fast-jet pilot, primarily on the Harrier, he commanded both a Harrier squadron and the Harrier Force in Germany, then became a qualified flying instructor during which time he taught The Prince of Wales to wings standard. A succession of national and NATO senior appointments followed, culminating in his promotion to Chief of the Air Staff and Air ADC to the Queen.

Anthony Fokker: The Flying Dutchman Who Shaped American Aviation tells the larger-than-life true story of maverick pilot and aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker. Fokker came from an affluent Dutch family. Despite not receiving a traditional education, he stumbled his way into aviation as a young stunt pilot in Germany in 1910. He survived a series of spectacular crashes and rose to fame. A combination of industrial espionage, luck, and deception then propelled him to become Germany's leading WWI aircraft manufacturer. When the German Revolution swept the country, Fokker made a spectacular escape to the US.

For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and Orphan Train, the author of the “thought-provoking” (Library Journal, starred review) and “must-read” (PopSugar) novel The Gilded Years crafts a captivating tale of three young people divided by the horrors of World War II and their journey...

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis never wrote a memoir, but she told her life story and revealed herself in intimate ways through the nearly 100 books she brought into print during the last two decades of her life as an editor at Viking and Doubleday. Based on archives and interviews with Jackie's...

A personal history of war from bestselling authors John McCain and Mark Salter, told through the stories of thirteen remarkable American soldiers who fought in the nation’s major military conflicts, from the Revolution of 1776 through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a veteran himself, a...

Informed by unparalleled access to still–secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military’s own internal after–action reports, Cobra II is the definitive chronicle of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq—a conflict that could not be lost but one...