Aviation Biography

Having flown an astonishing 400 different aircraft, as a licensed Category 1 test pilot and flight test instructor for both airplanes and helicopters, Chris Taylor is arguably one of the best qualified and widely experienced test pilots working today anywhere in the world. After obtaining his private pilot’s license at the age of 17, Chris began his service flying career with the Royal Navy. He flew Wasp and Lynx helicopters from warships around the world under all kinds of circumstances.

This is the autobiography of Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas CBE, DSO, DFC, who was one of the most distinguished fighter pilots of World War II. He writes of his wartime experiences, and particularly of his period as Squadron Leader and Wing Commander and his involvement in the Battle of Britain.

In the seventy years since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan during a flight over the Central Pacific, their fate has remained one of history's most debated mysteries despite dozens of books offering solutions. This book is different. It draws on thousands of never-before-published primary source documents to present a narrative that corrects decades of misconception. Ric Gillespie offers a very realistic picture of Earhart, her attempted world flight, the events surrounding her disappearance, and the U.S. government’s failed attempt to find her.

Just nine years after American women finally got the right to vote, a group of trailblazers soared to new heights in the 1929 Air Derby, the first women's air race across the U.S. Follow the incredible lives of legend Amelia Earhart, who has captivated generations; Marvel Crosson, who built a plane before she even learned how to fly; Louise Thaden, who shattered jaw-dropping altitude records; and Elinor Smith, who at age 17 made headlines when she flew under the Brooklyn Bridge. Born to Fly is the gripping story of the fearless women pilots who aimed for the skies - and beyond.

Michelle Huntington's dream of flight took root at the age of seven—and, against all odds, she became one of just 500 female airline captains worldwide. Over two decades, she’s flown solo across vast oceans, landed on rugged outback strips, and even survived a lightning strike mid-flight.

The twists and turns of the last 15 years of the Qantas story contain all the ingredients of a corporate thriller, with constant shocks to the system, and boardroom dramas and disasters narrowly avoided. During this tumultuous period, as CEO of Australia's iconic airline, Alan Joyce became one of the best-known corporate figures in Australia, and one of the most polarising. He's had to steer the company through cyclones and bushfires, volcanic ash clouds and a tsunami, a pandemic, two fleet groundings, intense union battles and a bitter turf-war.

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the Pearl Harbor attack. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. This first-person account of his harrowing missions—chronicling deadly flights through skies of red-hot flak bursts and airmen bailing out with parachutes aflame—will leave listeners staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators.

In Marshall's Great Captain, author Kathy Wilson details Andrews's extraordinary life and career. The first biography dedicated to the namesake of Joint Base Andrews, this book sheds a light on Andrews's crucial role in orchestrating US involvement in WWII, as well as the professional relationship between Andrews and Marshall. Wilson raises Andrews's legacy to its legitimate place within the annals of both air power and WWII history and posits that there is a high probability that Andrews was Marshall's first choice for the office of Supreme Allied Commander.

There were no mission limits for a pilot in the Pacific during World War II; unlike in Europe, you flew until it was time to go home. So it was for James "Jug" Curran, all the way from New Guinea to the Philippines with the 348th Fighter Group, the first P-47 Thunderbolt outfit in the Pacific. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Curran volunteered to try flying in the blue yonder and trained as an Army fighter pilot. He got his wish to fly the P-47 in the Pacific, going into combat in August 1943, in New Guinea, and later helping start the "Black Rams" fighter squadron.

In 1993, U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat, but the full story of how it happened is largely unknown. The Fly Girls Revolt chronicles the actions of a band of women who overcame decades of discrimination and prevailed against bureaucrats, chauvinists, anti-feminists, and even other military women. Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Eileen Bjorkman weaves together a tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military.

In the spirit of the bestseller Fly Girls comes the definitive and compelling true story of Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to receive a pilot's license. In the early twentieth century, headlines declared that "the era of women has dawned." Against this changing historical backdrop...

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.

Tracey Curtis-Taylor has created headlines around the world with three epic flights in a 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane. Paying homage to two historic female aviators, she flew from Cape Town to Goodwood in 2013, from London to Australia in 2015 and, two years later, completed a transcontinental flight across the USA, after surviving a plane crash during the expedition. But her daring exploits came at a huge personal cost. Tracey tells, in breathtaking detail, the remarkable story of how she overcame extreme adversity to complete her three epic journeys.

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 outmaneuvered the US government. In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, award-winning author Lauren Kessler tells the story of a high-spirited, headstrong woman who was proud of her successes, unabashed by her failures, and the architect of her own legend.

By the author of Ashes Under Water, here is one of the great untold stories of World War II. The Hidden Hindenburg at last reveals the cause of aviation's most famous disaster and the duplicity that kept the truth from coming to light for three generations. It also finally catches up with a German legend who misled the world about the Hindenburg to bury his own Nazi connections.

Sherman Lead is the gripping story of a year flying the F-4 in combat during the Vietnam War, told through the eyes of a fighter pilot. Operating out of Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand in 1968-69, Gail Peck and his squadronmates in the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing were tasked with flying combat missions into North Vietnam and Laos. The F-4 was heavily involved in the air-to-ground mission at this time, with targets being well defended by enemy anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles.

On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. But against all odds, pilot Francis Gary Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. Award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA.

The nearly half-million American air crewmen who served during World War II have almost disappeared. And so have their stories. Award-winning writer and former fighter pilot Jay A. Stout uses Unsung Eagles to save an exciting collection of those accounts from oblivion. These are not rehashed tales from the hoary icons of the war. Rather, they are stories from the masses of largely unrecognized men who - in the aggregate - actually won it.

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.

Noah Adams's adventure in search of Wilbur and Orville Wright is a journey that takes him across the country as he follows in the footsteps of the famous brothers in an attempt to know them more deeply, not just as inventors and pilots but as individuals as well.