Richard P. Hallion – författare

The invention of flight represents the culmination of centuries of thought and desire. Kites and rockets sparked our collective imagination. Then the balloon gave humanity its first experience aloft, though at the mercy of the winds. The steerable airship that followed had more practicality, yet a number of insurmountable limitations. But the airplane truly launched the Aerial Age, and its subsequent impact-from the vantage of a century after the Wright Brother's historic flight on December 17, 1903-has been extraordinary. Richard Hallion, a distinguished international authority on aviation, offers a bold new examination of aircraft history, stressing its global roots. The result is an interpretive history of uncommon sweep, complexity, and warmth.Taking care to place each technological advance in the context of its own period as well as that of the evolving era of air travel, this ground-breaking work follows the pre-history of flight, the work of balloon and airship advocates, fruitless early attempts to invent the airplane, the Wright brothers and other pioneers, the impact of air power on the outcome of World War I, and finally the transfer of prophecy into practice as flight came to play an ever-more important role in world affairs, both military and civil. Making extensive use of extracts from the journals, +iaries, and memoirs of the pioneers themselves, and interspersing them with a wide range or rare photographs and drawings, Taking Flight leads readers to the laboratories and airfields where aircraft were conceived and tested. Forcefully yet gracefully written in rich detail and with thorough documentation, this book is certain to be the standard reference for years to come on how humanity came to take to the sky, and what the Aerial Age has meant to the world since da Vinci's first fantastical designs.

“In The Naval Air War in Korea, Dr. Hallion has captured the fact, feeling, and fancy of a very important conflict in aviation history, including the highly significant facets of the transition from piston to jet-propelled combat aircraft.”—Norman Polmar, author of Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 18th Edition

A new history of Rolling Thunder, the Vietnam War's first, most intense, and biggest US air campaign, by one of the most eminent names in air power studies. Ideal for Vietnam War aviation enthusiasts and historical students, as well as everyone interested in Cold War air power.Operation Rolling Thunder was the campaign that was meant to keep South Vietnam secure, and dissuade the North from arming and supplying the Viet Cong. It pitted the world’s strongest air forces against the MiGs and missiles of a small Soviet client state. But the US airmen who flew Rolling Thunder missions were crippled by a badly thought-out strategy, rampant political interference in operational matters, and aircraft optimised for Cold War nuclear strikes rather than conventional warfare.Ironically, Rolling Thunder was one of the most influential episodes of the Cold War – its failure spurring the 1970s US renaissance in professionalism, fighter design, and combat pilot training. Dr Richard P. Hallion, one of America’s most eminent air power experts, explains how Rolling Thunder was conceived and fought, and why it became shorthand for how not to fight an air campaign.

Orville and Wilbur Wright, two bicycle-making brothers from Dayton, Ohio, secured their place as the most famous names in aviation history when, on December 17, 1903, they made the first powered, controlled, and sustained heavier-than-air flight.But their success over the cold and windswept Carolina dunes that day has overshadowed their many other accomplishments before and after that historic flight. The Wrights’ progression from theory to analysis to ground-testing components and wing shapes, and then to flight-testing kites, gliders, and their first powered aeroplane, marked the world’s first successful ‘X-Plane’ research and development programme. They established a template all subsequent aircraft have followed, one still relevant in the era of hypersonic flight and drone research.This book traces the Wright Brothers' story, from their first success on that cold December day throughout their glory years to their eventual eclipse by other aviators. It explores in detail the process that lead them to their pioneering craft and their many subsequent achievements over the following years, and highlights their enduring importance in the age of modern flight.

In this illustrated study, an acknowledged expert charts the development of close air support and battlefield air interdiction in theory and practice during World War II.In World War I the use of aircraft to support ground operations was in its infancy, and it was only after the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 that close air support (CAS) and battlefield air interdiction (BAI) began to evolve towards a recognizably modern form. Using innovative all-new artwork from renowned illustrator Adam Tooby, Richard P. Hallion shows how the Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939–41 saw the highly effective deployment of German dive-bombers, while the British, French and Soviet air forces strove to counter the Luftwaffe’s CAS measures with variable degrees of success.The British and Americans developed their own CAS doctrine in the Mediterranean during 1941–43, further refining it during the campaigns in Western Europe in 1944–45. Meanwhile during the fighting in Asia and the Pacific, the Japanese and their Allied opponents employed CAS techniques.Full-colour tactical diagrams, carefully chosen archive photographs and insightful analysis reveal how by 1945, Allied CAS doctrine had reached new levels of sophistication, boosted by the growing availability of dedicated aircraft, ordnance and communications technology.