Download or read book Hawker VC RFC ACE written by Tyrrel M. Hawker and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the age of 25 Lanoe Hawker of the Royal Flying Corps had won the VC and DSO. He was the first pilot to record five 'kills' before being shot down and killed by Baron von Richthofen (The Red Baron).Lanoe's biography was written by his brother Tyrrel as a tribute. The Hawkers came from a distinguished sporting family with strong military and naval records and Lanoe from the outset set his sights on flying for the RFC. After attending the Central Flying School, he crossed to France in October 1914 with 6 Squadron equipped with BE2s and Henri Farmans.As the war in the air progressed, Hawker shone as both a combat pilot and commander. He was rapidly promoted and given command of 24 Squadron. He, like other pilots, flew numerous early fighter aircraft such as the Bristol Scout, BE2c, FE2b and the famous DH2. Casualty/death rates were appalling but this special band of brothers flew on regardless until their turn came.This book contains many combat reports by pilots of their actions in the air which make the most graphic reading. Of particular interest is von Richthofen's account of their fatal encounter. The relative merits, qualities and characteristics of the aircraft, both British, French and German, are discussed with pilots' opinions.As an insight into Great War combat air operations Hawker VC RFC Ace is unlikely to be surpassed.

Download or read book Irish Aces of the RFC and the RAF in the First World War written by Joe Gleeson and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-05-17 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War had an enormous impact on Ireland. Over 240,000 Irish men and women volunteered to serve with the Allied forces, suffering almost 40,000 casualties. The Irish contribution to the air war remains overlooked, not just in Ireland, but also by historians generally. Although just 6,000 Irish served with the Allied flying services at a cost of 500 casualties, their impact was out of all proportion to their numbers. The contribution of Irish aces of the RFC and RAF to the Allied cause was enormous, just over thirty of whom accounted for 400 enemy aircraft. Irishmen such as Mannock, McElroy and Hazell were among the highest-scoring pilots of the war. Some were revered by their men, others were controversial figures – reckless with their own lives and those under their command – but many of their stories remain untold. This book seeks to restore all those who were written out of Irish history, while also providing for their achievements to be considered in the overall context of the first air war. Illustrations: 24 black-and-white photographs

Download or read book Hawker VC written by Tyrrel M. Hawker and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hawker VC the First RFC Ace written by Tyrrel M. Hawker and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Save Yourselves, I'll carry on'. These were the last known words of Herbert Columbine, shouted at his two companions on the afternoon of 22nd March 1918. At 9am that morning, in Hervilly Woods, France, 9 Squadron Machine Gun Corps had come under intense attack from a heavy force of German infantry. Private Columbine took command of an isolated gun, with no wire in front and began firing. As the German onslaught grew and casualties mounted, Herbert and two others eventually became separated from the rest of their Squadron. After several hours it became clear their position would soon be overrun so Herbert told them to escape while they could. Now on his own, Herbert hung on tenaciously, repelling several attacks, each one deadlier than the last. He was only defeated after the Germans bought up air support and dropped a bomb on his position. Herbert Columbine has no known grave. All author royalties from the sale of this book go to the Columbine Statue Fund of which Dame Judi Dench is Patron. This is a project to raise money for a lasting memorial to Herbert Columbine in his home town of Walton on the Naze, Essex. For more information please visit www.carolemctbooks.info/herbert-columbine-vc/

Download or read book One in a Thousand written by Graham Broad and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short microhistory details the life and death of Eddie McKay, a varsity athlete at Western University, who flew with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. Graham Broad switches creatively from telling McKay's fascinating story to teaching valuable lessons on how to do history: why the past matters, why historians take different approaches, how to pose historical questions, how to identify relevant source materials, and the importance of thoughtful, intelligent, and respectful treatment of historical subjects. The book includes a timeline of the subject's life, a map of relevant combat areas in the Battle of the Somme, and nine illustrations. It concludes with four unsolved events in McKay's life: a mysterious woman, a strange advertisement for batteries, an empty envelope, and an unknown grave—demonstrating that even a detailed history about one person's life is never really complete.

Download or read book Great War Fighter Aces 1914 1916 written by Norman Franks and published by Pen and Sword Aviation. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, Norman Franks tells the story, in words and images, of the emergence of some of the greatest fighter aces to see action during the first half of the First World War. He explores the manner in which the situation developed from late 1914 to the late summer of 1916, the point at which Oswald Boelcke helped form the German Jasta system that would prove so devastating to the RFC and RNAS. Utilizing images drawn from his large personal archive of photographs, Franks profiles some of the greatest and most notorious aces, as well as the aircraft in which they flew. The first years of the war saw some of the bravest acts of pilot gallantry and ingenuity play out. Franks celebrates the legacy of just a handful of these individuals, participants on both sides, including Boelcke's premier ace Manfred Von Richtofen, Lanoe Hawker, Georges Guynemer, Albert Ball, Lionel Rees, Wilhelm Frankl, and Stanley Dallas amongst many others.

Download or read book Basics of Virtual Reality written by Armin Grasnick and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the reality we know can be recorded and reproduced true to reality using technical processes. Space and time are recreated virtually as a copy in artificial reality. However, the reproduction of virtual reality is not limited to a mere copy of what exists. A visitor to the virtual space does not have to be content with the pixelated image of the old familiar, but can encounter unreal phenomena in the illusory world that never existed in real life or are even physically impossible. This enables an expansion of the recorded reality and allows the perception of surprisingly new perspectives. A perspective denotes the perception of a fact from a certain point of view and corresponds to the way of looking at things. But a perspective is also the observation of a scene from a viewing position. From different perspectives the illusion of reality arises during the reproduction by observation. This vision is not based on imagination or hallucination, but is the basic function of virtual reality. This book describes the concepts, systems, and technologies used to create virtual reality from its ancient beginnings to the present, and provides a glimpse into a possible future. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Grundlagen der virtuellen Realität by Armin Grasnick, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

Download or read book The Dawn of the Drone written by Steve Mills and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] slice of largely-forgotten military history . . . a fascinating exploration of some magnificent men and their flying machines.” —The Sunday Post In the dark days of World War I, when flying machines, radio, and electronics were infant technologies, the first remotely controlled experimental aircraft took to the skies and unmanned radio controlled 40-foot high-speed Motor Torpedo Boats ploughed the seas in Britain. Developed by the British Army’s Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy these prototype weapons stemmed from an early form of television demonstrated before the war by Prof. A. M. Low. The remotecontrol systems for these aircraft and boats were invented at RFC Secret Experimental Works commanded by Prof. Low, which was part of the organization of “back-room boys” in the Munitions Inventions Department. These audacious projects led to the hundreds of remotely controlled Queen Bee aerial targets in the 1930s and hence to all the machines that we now call “drones.” Starting well before WWI and, for the lucky ones, extending well beyond it, the lives of Archibald Low and many of his contemporaries were extraordinary as were the times they lived through. They were around for the first epic aircraft flights and with the aid of the very technologies that had enabled the development of drones, they saw air travel transformed from the precarious to the routine. It is astonishing that the origins of the first drones are not common knowledge in Britain and that the achievement of these maverick inventors is not commemorated. “A focused and engaging look at one arena of behind-the-scenes scientific research and the larger-than-life personalities who populated it.” —Booklist

Download or read book Escaping Soldiers and Airmen of World War I written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-30 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thrilling new volume from Martin Bowman focusses on British, Canadian, Australian and German soldiers and airmen who were captured during the First World War. Determined that they wouldnt spend the rest of the conflict incarcerated uselessly behind bars, they endeavored to escape. These are their stories.All aspects of prison life are covered here, and the author examines the various escape tactics that were employed by British soldiers and airmen held in PoW camps all over Germany and Turkey. In order to provide a balanced account, the author has also uncovered stories of German navy and army escapees who attempted to flee from England.Each chapter is preceded by an account which explains the types of camps used in Britain and Germany, the numbers involved, the food, the camp money system for worker prisoners and a general appreciation of the conditions and chronology. Firsthand accounts from the prisoners themselves are then woven into the picture, creating an authentic sense of the PoW experience.The emphasis of this unique book is placed on the human story of the main characters, the unparalleled action on the Western Front and the interaction and camaraderie experienced between soldiers and airmen held in prison camps in England, Germany and Turkey during the Second World War.

Download or read book DH 2 vs Albatros D I D II written by James F. Miller and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-20 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flown by Victoria Cross recipient Lanoe Hawker and the members of No 24 Sqn, the ungainly yet nimble DH 2 helped the Allies attain air superiority over the Somme in early 1916 and hold it through the summer. With its rotary engine 'pusher' configuration affording excellent visibility and eliminating the need for a synchronized machine gun, the DH 2 was more than a match for anything the Germans could put in the air. That is, until the arrival of the Albatros D II, a sleek inline-engined machine built for speed and with twin-gun firepower. Thus, the later part of 1916 saw an epic struggle in the skies above the Somme pitting the manoeuvrable yet under-gunned DH 2s against the less nimble yet better armed and faster Albatros D IIs. In the end the Germans would regain air superiority, three squadron commanders – two of whom were considered pinnacles of their respective air forces – would lose their lives, and an up-and-coming pilot (Manfred von Richthofen) would triumph in a legendary dogfight and attain unimagined heights fighting with tactics learned from a fallen mentor.

Download or read book The Greatest Air Aces Stories Ever Told written by Col. Robert Barr Smith and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In thirty-five chapters, The Greatest Air Aces Stories Ever Told covers many of the leading American and British Commonwealth fighter aces of WW I and II, together with a few bomber crews whose gallantry made a substantial contribution to the end of WW II. Other nations had their aces, but this book concentrates on American and Commonwealth pilots. These aviators were chosen not only because of their “scores” and their great courage, but also for other qualities which set them apart, like the WWII Royal Air Force Wing Commander who shot down more than 20 Germans while flying with two artificial legs. Here are a few of the aces. Note that the air forces of Europe and the United States did not always have today’s names, used here for simplicity’s sake: Albert Ball, RAF, son of the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, winner of the Victoria Cross. He had 44 victories in WWI when he was killed at the age of 20, well known to his German foes, who much admired him. Gabby Gabreski, USAF. Son of hard-working Polish immigrants. An ace in WWII with 28 kills and later in Korea, with another six. He was an accomplished commander, finished a long career as a colonel. Mick Mannock, RAF. Tough and aggressive in spite of his fear of fire, he won not only the Victoria Cross, but five other high awards for gallantry. Highest British scorer of WWI with 73 victories, he detested Germans, and rejoiced with every kill. He was shot down by ground fire in the last year of the war. David McCampbell, USN. Scored 34 WWII kills to become the U.S. Navy’s all-time ace. In 1944, set an all-time record with nine victories on a single mission. Winner of the Congressional Medal. Pick Pickard, RAF. Led the RAF rooftop bomber raid on Amiens Prison In WWII, freeing many underground members, some of whom were facing death, and who were promptly spirited away by French partisans. Frank Luke, USAF. Deadly American famous for his busting of German observation balloons in WWI. Shot up over German territory, he managed to land safely, but, being Luke, tried to fight it out with enemy infantrymen with only his pistol. The book will also touch on the equipment these aces flew, from the famous Fokkers and Sopwith Camels to the ungainly two-seater FE2b, which was driven by a pusher engine and looked like a bathtub with wings and a miniature oil derrick glued on the back. Also included are our own Grumman carrier fighters, the P-40s, the P-38s, as well as the P-51 Mustang, probably the finest fighter of the war, a happy marriage of an American airframe and a British engine. The deadly, graceful Spitfire has its place, as do the Hurricane, the biplane Gladiator, and even the four-engine Lancaster.

Download or read book Marked for Death written by James Hamilton-Paterson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World War I. Nearly forgotten in the war's massive overall death toll, some 50,000 aircrew would die in the combatant nations' fledgling air forces. The romance of aviation had a remarkable grip on the public imagination, propaganda focusing on gallant air 'aces' who become national heroes. The reality was horribly different. Marked for Death debunks popular myth to explore the brutal truths of wartime aviation: of flimsy planes and unprotected pilots; of burning nineteen-year-olds falling screaming to their deaths; of pilots blinded by the entrails of their observers. James Hamilton-Paterson also reveals how four years of war produced profound changes both in the aircraft themselves and in military attitudes and strategy. By 1918 it was widely accepted that domination of the air above the battlefield was crucial to military success, a realization that would change the nature of warfare forever.

Download or read book Military Aviation of the First World War written by Alan Sutton and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - over 470 black-and-white photographs! This beautifully illustrated book provides details of every power that took part in Military aircraft activity during the First World War. The war was a global conflict with 57 nations involved but with aviation being in its infancy only eight nations had a major air arm to their fighting Services. The Allies: Britain, America, Italy, Belgium, France, and Russia and then the Central Powers comprising Germany and Austria - Hungary. The book covers the formation, establishment and wartime exploits of all the major air powers during the war, as well as providing thumbnail sketches of all the major aces for each country, giving full coverage to: The Allies: The Royal Flying Corps, The French Military Air Service, The United States Air Service, Aeronautica de Region Esercito (Italy), The Belgian Air Arm, The Russian Imperial Air Services. The Central Powers: The Imperial German Air Service, and the Austro-Hungarian flying service However, smaller powers (at the time) like Australia, Canada and Japan as well as Portugal, Serbia, Romania and South Africa are all featured is this fascinating book.

Download or read book British and Empire Aces of World War 1 written by Christopher Shores and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outset of World War I the British had some 110 assorted aircraft, used mostly for the visual reconnaissance role. With the advent of faster and more agile single-seaters, the Allies and their adversaries raced to outdo each other in the creation of genuinely effective fighters with fixed forward-firing machine gun armament. It was not until 1917 that the British developed a truly effective interrupter gear, which paved the way for excellent single seaters such as the Sopwith Triplane Camel and the RAF S.E.5., later joined by the Bristol F.2B the war's best two-seat fighter. This volume traces the rapid development of the fighter in World War I and the amazing exploits of the British and Empire aces who flew them.

Download or read book Sopwith Pup Aces of World War 1 written by Norman Franks and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sopwith Pup was the forerunner of the hugely successful Sopwith Camel, which duly became the most successful fighter of World War 1. The first proper British fighting scout, the first Pups – the Royal Naval Air Service – arrived on the Western Front in 1916. Although regarded as a 'nice' aeroplane to fly, pilots who used it in combat gained much success during the first half of 1917. The Royal Flying Corps also used the Pup from January 1917 onwards, with the final combats with the machine occurring in December of that year. This book describes the combat careers of the successful Pup aces, how they flew and how they fought.

Download or read book Flying Aces written by John Sadler and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ace in the air was once a celebrity figure, a glamorous warrior of the skies. But this was daunting and dangerous work in the midst of brutal and bloody wars. An action-packed narrative keeps the reader riveted to the tales of real-life awesome aces, and cuts through the glitz to get to the nitty-gritty of these fights and flights. Readers will learn about the top aces from around the world, all kinds of planes, the wars in which they flew, and victories, emphasizing record holders. Topical quotes, songs, and poems will engage readers as well.

Download or read book The Red Knight of Germany written by Floyd Gibbons and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: