Osprey's Big Reveal: General Aviation

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GNA: 75 years of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works

This pictorial journey will take the reader from the very beginning of the Skunk Works’ very first project (XP-80 Shooting Star) and follow the programme through prototype build-up, first flight and, if they reached the frontline, operational service. This treatment will be repeated for each of the 30 unclassified programmes designed and built by the Skunk Works. Each programme will form a chapter of at least two pages in length, with a maximum of 14 pages being allocated for programmes that went into production and merit more detailed coverage, such as the P-80/F-94/T-33 family, C-130 family and, of course, the A-12 and SR-71.

GNA: Luftwaffe Special Weapons 1942–45

As the course of World War II turned against the Third Reich after Stalingrad some of the most inventive and radical proposals, and designs, were put forward by armaments manufacturers, scientists and technicians, aircrew and even private individuals to the Reichsluftministerium (German Air Ministry) for consideration. Some proposals were destined never to leave the drawing board, while others not only underwent trials but were issued to operational units and used in action.
  
In this fascinating new book, leading Luftwaffe historian Robert Forsyth examines the many different types of weapons that comprised the Luftwaffe’s increasing potent arsenal during the second half of the war. This was the period that saw the development and adoption of aerial torpedoes, wire-guided rockets and missiles, batteries fired by photo-electric cells, chemical weapons, composite bombers and air-launched flying bombs.

GNA: Marine Aces over the South Pacific

Marine Corps aviation began in 1915, functioning as a self-contained expeditionary force. During the interwar period, the support of USMC amphibious operations became a key element of Marine aviation doctrine, and the small force gradually grew.

In the South Pacific, the aviators of the US Marine Corps came out of the shadows to establish themselves as an air force second to none. In the summer of 1942, when Allied airpower was cobbled together into a single unified entity – nicknamed 'the Cactus Air Force’ – Marine Aviation dominated and Major General Roy Geiger, was its commander. Of a dozen Allied fighter squadrons that were part of the Cactus Air Force, eight were USMC squadrons. It was over Guadalcanal that Joe Foss emerged as a symbol of Marine aviation. As commander of Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-121, he organized a group of fighter pilots, which downed 72 enemy aircraft; Foss himself reached a score of 26. Pappy Boyington had become a Marine aviator in 1935. Best known as the commander of VMF214, Boyington came into his own in late 1943 while Foss was stateside. Boyington eventually matched Foss’s aerial victory score.

Through the parallel stories of these two top-scoring fighter aces, as well as many other Marine aces, such as Ken Walsh, Don Aldrich, John L. Smith, Wilbur Thomas, and Marion Carl, acclaimed aviation historian Bill Yenne examines the development of US Marine Corps aviation in the South Pacific.

GNA: MiG Man

Get inside the head of one of America's most experienced MiG pilots, Lt Col Zettel, as he tells the thrilling tale of Constant Peg, a top secret US operation that wouldn't feel out of place in the plot of 'Top Gun'. At the height of the Cold War America illicitly obtained Russian Fighters, transported them to the Tonopah Test Range and pitted them against star US fighter pilots in simulated combat exercises. With controls labelled in Russian and the only spare parts being the ones they could salvage, the pilots who climbed into the MiGs accepted all of the risks associated with operating these aircraft.

Vivid accounts of training engagements put the reader right there in the cockpit, flying alongside the 'Red Eagles' as they trained the best pilots America had to offer. Historical photographs help paint the picture of an operation that took the US Air Force from its dismal performance in the Vietnam War to an unprecedented air-to-air kill ratio in Operation Desert Storm.

GNA: World War II Fighter Plane Spotter's Guide

World War II saw the combatants race to outdo one another in design and manufacture in a desperate bid to field new and improved weapons that would clinch victory. Nowhere was this rivalry more fierce or marked than in the air. The war saw fighter aircraft progress from piston-driven planes at the outbreak of war to the dawn of the jet age by the war’s end. This handy pocket guide gives the reader the essential details of each fighter in chronological order. Drawing on Osprey’s comprehensive aviation archive, the World War II Fighter Plane Spotter's Guide uses detailed profile artwork to illustrate and aid recognition, as well as specification boxes to provide all the technical details.