Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II

Product Description Within a decade of the Wright Brothers’ historic flight at Kitty Hawk, pilots were dropping the first crude bombs out of airplanes in combat while visionaries were predicting that the crushing power of an aerial assault would end warfare as we knew it. Yet for much of the first century of flight the myth of the airplane’s unstoppable power often surged far ahead of technological reality. It would take both brilliant new inventions and bold new thinking for air power to triumph at last—as it did with such devastating effect in the two Gulf wars. This sweeping history includes the latest inside details of air operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where precision weapons and unmanned drones quickly determined the outcome of the fight against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Stephen Budiansky draws on combat memoirs, government archives, and museum collections to create a sobering and dramatic account of the air wars of the last hundred years. A story of ideas and men, of intricate machines and fierce passions, Air Power is an edge-of-the-seat drama of contemporary warfare and technology crafted by one of our most gifted writers. From Publishers Weekly For the aviation buff with a passion for history, this survey from veteran national security correspondent Budiansky (Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in WWII) will be a must. Budiansky has plumbed a plethora of the right sources to assemble an eminently accessible and accurate survey of the evolution of military aviation during the 20th century, with an emphasis on U.S. and British experience. From a succinct account of the development of powered flight in the early part of the century, Budiansky moves on to its military application by the world's armies during WWI and its "coming of age" during WWII, cleverly interweaving technical advancements that have directly affected military aviation with the fighting man's point-of-view. World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq campaign of 2003 are all covered accurately and succinctly, as is the context necessary to understand the air warfare component of each. From the propellers and airfoils of the Wright brothers to the stealth aircraft of today, the important technological developments and innovations made in aircraft design are all here, simply and clearly explained. The research is extensive and thorough, and more than 100 images concretize all the tech talk and descriptions of action. The mention of the air warfare theories of John Boyd, developed during and after Vietnam, that revamped air force fighter tactics and design, comprise just one of myriad rewarding byways in this comprehensive project. 40-plus airplane diagrams; 35 maps and illus.; two 16-page b&w photo inserts totaling 87 images (not seen by PW). Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist A seasoned defense journalist surveys the application of aviation to war, which became possible less than five years after the Wright brothers' first flight. Aviation as a decisive factor in warfare, however, wasn't realized until during the two Gulf Wars against Iraq. That long development is attributable to a variety of factors, beginning with a sheer lack of aircraft and inappropriate aircraft design, as in the early World War II heavy bombers. The matter of having faulty--or no--theory and tactics of aviation warfare, as in Vietnam, and the capacities of enemies for creating stout defenses and making rapid repairs, as in Korea, needed to be overcome. Politics also had retarding effects, especially in Vietnam but also in the controversy over area bombing during WWII. Not until the convergence, in the wake of Vietnam, of new aircraft and tactics with the concept of electronically supported smart weapons did air power achieve the results advocates had long anticipated. Roland Green Copyright © American Librar