MAA ACE NVG COM XPL WPN DUE RAID ACM FOR ELI CAM CBT GNA GNM1 GNM2


To navigate your way through the Big Reveal please use the links in the bar above.

Time for another update in our Big Reveal! Today we're seeing what's next in our General Aviation series. 

Concorde Pocket Manual

First flown in 1969, Concorde was the first supersonic aircraft to go into commercial service in 1976 and made her final flight in 2003. She was operated primarily by British Airways and Air France. British Airways’ Concordes made just under 50,000 flights and flew more than 2.5m passengers supersonically. A typical London to New York crossing would take a little less than three and a half hours compared to around eight hours for a ‘subsonic flight’. In November 1986 a Concorde flew around the world, covering 28,238 miles in 29 hours, 59 minutes.

Today, Concordes can be viewed at museums across the UK and in France, including at IWM Duxford, Brooklands and Fleet Air Arm Museum, as well as at Heathrow, Manchester and Paris-Orly airports. Through a series of key documents the book tells the story of how the aircraft was designed and developed as well as ground-breaking moments in her commercial history.

No Ordinary Pilot

After a lifetime in the RAF, Group Captain Bob Allen, finally allowed his children and grandchildren to see his official flying log. It contained the line: 'KILLED IN ACTION'. He refused to answer any further questions, leaving instead a memoir of his life during World War II.

Joining up aged 19, within six months he was in No.1 Squadron flying a Hurricane in a dog fight over the Channel. For almost two years he lived in West Africa, fighting the German’s Vichy French allies, as well as protecting the Southern Atlantic supply routes. Returning home at Christmas 1942, he retrained as a fighter-bomber pilot flying Typhoons and was one of the first over the Normandy beaches on D-Day.

On 25 July 1944 Bob was shot down, spending the rest of the war in a POW camp where he was held in solitary confinement, interrogated by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the infamous Stalag Luft 3 and suffered the winter march of 1945 before being liberated by the Russians.

Fleshing out Bob's careful third-person memoir with detailed research, his daughter Suzanne Campbell-Jones tells the gripping story of a more or less ordinary pilot, who came home with extraordinary memories which he kept to himself for more than 50 years.

Hurricane

This remarkable aircraft, designed and built to combat the emerging fighter strength of the Axis nations in the lead-up to World War II, made its name in the air battles over Britain and France in the first years of the war. Beloved by its pilots for its stable firing platform and reputation as a rugged survivor, the Hawker Hurricane quickly became the backbone of the RAF, scoring more kills than the more glamorous Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.

This compact volume draws on a wealth of research, artwork and contemporary photographs, as well as images of surviving Hurricanes in flight today, to present a complete guide to this classic fighter aircraft.

The Royal Air Force: A Centenary of Operations

The world’s first independent air force, the Royal Air Force celebrates its centenary in 2018. In the 100 years since the end of World War I, the service has been involved in almost continuous operations around the globe, giving the RAF the longest and most wide-ranging history of any air force in the world. But over the years this history has also become entangled with myths.

The Royal Air Force: A Centenary of Operations will set the record straight, dispelling these as it uncovers – in both words and photographs – the true exploits and accomplishments of RAF personnel over the last 100 years. From its formation as an independent service in the dying days of World War I, its desperate fight against the Axis air forces in World War II, to its commitments during both the Cold War and modern times, this is the complete story of how the RAF has defended Britain for a century.

 

Which of these General Aviation titles will be landing on your shelves in 2018?