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Find out moreSee below for a selection of the latest books from Aircraft: general interest category. Presented with a red border are the Aircraft: general interest books that have been lovingly read and reviewed by the experts at Lovereading. With expert reading recommendations made by people with a passion for books and some unique features Lovereading will help you find great Aircraft: general interest books and those from many more genres to read that will keep you inspired and entertained. And it's all free!
The Daily Mail and the Spectator Book of the Year (2017) 'Perfect inflight reading ... Brilliant' The Sunday Times 'This couldn't be more highly recommended' Alain de Botton 'Explains simply and clearly the abiding mysteries of flight' Daily Mail 'A work of humorous and outright poetic travel geekery' National Geographic Traveler 'Illuminates the practical reality of piloting in a concise and useful manner' Times Literary Supplement Do something amazing and learn a new skill thanks to the Little Ways to Live a Big Life books! By the author of the acclaimed international bestseller Skyfaring, the Economist's 'Best book of the Year' and a New York Times 'Notable Book', and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week So, hello! Welcome! Honestly, you look surprisingly relaxed. That's great to see. Have a seat on the left side of the cockpit - that's the captain's seat. Yes, that's right, you're now the captain, and yes, that's the runway down there. Fasten your seatbelt, order yourself a cup of tea, and let's get cracking. Mark Vanhoenacker, the airline pilot who makes poetry out of the science of flight technology, hands over the controls. Walking and talking us through the nitty-gritty of an approach and touchdown, he builds our understanding of flight from the ground up (or rather from the sky down), offering a new perspective of one of the more challenging and rewarding tasks ever.
With the approach of WW2 the de Havilland Aerodrome at Hatfield went through a major expansion, concentrating on Mosquito production and development. The Company also pioneered the production and development of jet engines led by Major Frank Halford, leading to the Vampire jet fighter. Early commercial aircraft were the Dove and Heron, but the major pioneering programme was the Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner, which first flew on 27 July 1949 and entered service with BOAC on 2 May 1952. The DH.108 tailless research aircraft based on the Vampire fuselage was used to investigate the effects of the speed of sound, exceeding Mach 1 on 9 September 1948. The de Havilland jet airliner developed through the Trident, which was the first aircraft capable of automatic landing with passengers in all weathers, leading to the BAe 146 Whisper Jet, Britain's most successful jet airliner. In addition to developing turbojet engines, the Engine Company also developed rocket engines. The Propeller Company developed air-to-air guided missiles and the Blue Streak stage 1 booster space rocket. Other types developed by de Havilland at Hatfield were the Sea Vixen naval strike fighter and the DH 125 Business Jet.
Designed and manufactured by the men who would make Concorde, the Rolls-Royce powered Vickers VC10, and its larger variant, the Super VC10, represented the ultimate in 1960s subsonic airliners. The VC10 was Britain's answer to the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8. The VC10 was a second-generation jetliner designed in the 1960s and manufactured into the 1970s. It incorporated advanced engineering, new aerodynamics, and design features, to produce a swept, sculpted machine easily identifiable by its high T-tail design and rear-engine configuration. The VC10 could take off in a very short distance, climb more steeply and land at slower speed than its rivals the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8\. These were vital safety benefits in the early years of the jet age. At one stage, the Super VC10 was the biggest airliner made in Europe and the fastest in the world. On entry into service, both the VC10 and the longer Super VC10 carved out a niche with passengers who enjoyed the speed, silence and elegance of the airliner. Pilots, meanwhile, loved its ease of flying and extra power. Yet the VC10 project was embroiled in political and corporate machinations across many years and more than one government. BOAC got what they asked for but went on to criticise the VC10 for not being a 707 - which was a different beast entirely. Questions were asked in parliament and the whole story was enmeshed in a political and corporate affair that signified the end of British big airliner production. Yet the men who made the VC10 also went on to design and build Concorde. Many VC10 pilots became Concorde pilots. In service until the 1980s with British Airways, and until 2013 with the RAF, the VC10 became a British icon and a national hero, one only eclipsed by Concorde. It remains an enthusiast's hero.
Only in America could Walter A. Soplata, the son of penniless Czech immigrants, accomplish so much by single-handedly saving historic aircraft from World War II and other periods. After a childhood spent dreaming about having his own airfield, Soplata worked in scrapyards taking apart hundreds of WWII aircraft. Shocked to see rare or unusual pieces on their way to the recycling furnace rather than a museum, Soplata began collecting, saving and restoring whatever he could afford. Walter eventually collected nearly 20 complete aircraft and countless pieces of others, and one of his Corsair fighter planes included the experimental F2G Corsair #74 that won the Cleveland National Air Races in 1947. Among the other priceless aircraft he rescued was an experimental XP-82 Twin Mustang, an F-82E Twin Mustang, an X-prototype Skyraider, a stainless steel BT-12 and an F7U Cutlass jet fighter plane. Once, in an extreme case of doing whatever it took, Soplata's limited income necessitated him hauling the Cutlass fuselage by stuffing it inside a junked school bus for its 600-mile journey home. The story of a workaholic father and his aviation obsessed son, this book records the accomplishments of a rare and unique bird, just like the many airplanes he saved.
This was the first book which put the reader into the pilots' seats of 37 classic World War Two aircraft. It offers historical photographs of the interiors of dozens of British, American, German, Russian and Japanese planes, offering a pilot's perspective of each plane. The featured aircraft and cockpit profiles include: Supermarine Spitfire; Bristol Blenheim; Bristol Beaufighter; Hawker Typhoon; de Havilland Mosquito; Avro Lancaster; Messerschmitt Me410; Me163; Lockheed P38 Lightning; Grumman Wildcat; Boeing B17 Flying Fortress; Gloster Gladiator; Hawker Hurricane; Mitsubishi Zero; Yak-3; and, ME 262. Author Donald Nijboer is also the author of 2005's bestselling, Graphic War . Each cockpit profile is written by a veteran pilot or aviation historian. The foreword is written by former RAF Air Vice-Marshall, Ron Dick.
A former aircraft engineer exposes the dangerous breakdown in airline safety due to lapses in maintenance and quality control. This book chronicles maintenance-related accidents caused by individual, corporate, or governmental negligence and brings the industry's current state of affairs into sharp focus. The author, a former aviation engineer, examines how failures of the smallest of parts have brought down airliners, explaining sometimes esoteric mechanical issues for readers with no technical background. Vividly describing the terror of accidents and close calls, the author then follows the painstaking investigations to determine causes. He focuses on maintenance errors, which rank as one of the top three causes of airline accidents, and points to the factors that have led to an alarming situation-- continued reduction of licensed mechanics, the shutting down of maintenance bases in the United States, and the outsourcing of maintenance to lowballing contractors. Outsourcing has forced thousands of licensed mechanics into retirement or different careers. For those mechanics still employed in the United States, the ever-present threat to their jobs does nothing to cultivate loyalty to an employer and devotion to a task. The Federal Aviation Administration, which should be overseeing quality control, is caught in a conflicted dual role--charged with regulating safety on the one hand and assuring the fiscal stability of airlines on the other. This disturbing wakeup call for improved airline safety standards highlights the critical importance of attention to detail. Porter recommends that the numbers and job security of airline mechanics be increased and that they be vested with an authority level akin to medical professionals.
