Air Force War

Embark on an extraordinary journey through the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) as Chief Master Sergeant (Retired) Bob Vásquez, opens his heart and shares a collection of poignant stories. This captivating book is intended to inform, inspire, and ignite introspection for USAFA Grads, USAFA Staff, parents, and family members alike. Picture yourself sitting with Chief, savoring a cup of coffee at Arnold Hall or strolling across the iconic Terrazzo, as he masterfully recounts unforgettable anecdotes. With every turn of the page, readers are beckoned to reflect on their own ...

June 1976 – beer is 32p a pint, Abba are topping the charts, and Britain is on the cusp of what will turn out to be its most glorious summer on record. As the temperature soars, a working-class boy from the English Midlands and a vivacious exchange student from the United States arrive on a holiday island, determined to seek out good times, adventure and romance. What neither youngster can foresee is that before that long, hot summer has drawn to a close their carefree weeks of fun in the sun will be overtaken by the discovery of dark secrets from the past.

When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force at eighteen, he did so out of necessity. He hadn’t been accepted into colleges thanks to an indifferent high school career. He’d too often slept through his classes as he worked long hours at a Chinese restaurant to help pay the bills for his trailer-dwelling family in Lake City, Florida. But the Air Force recognizes his potential and sends him to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan.

“Carefully plotted…an abundance of cunning political themes…invigorating until the last page.” –The BookLife Prize Cold War espionage is raging. A Russian bomber crashes on a frozen Alaska lake. The lone survivor, Anton, has flown the mission to free his wife from a political gulag, even though he knows in his heart that she is already dead. Ellen, the widow of a falsely discredited US Intelligence officer rescues him. Their common story of betrayal sparks a passion that each felt was forever lost. THE OPPOSITE OF TRUST is the perfect title for a cold war thriller that pits east ...

A single pilot can fly the U.S. Air Force's powerful fighter plane, DreamStar - and he's a KGB mole. Captain Kenneth Francis James - a.k.a. Andrei Maraklov - has been ordered to steal DreamStar, an XF-34 fighter that has the frightening ability to respond to its pilot's thoughts and issue its own commands. It's up to Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan - the hero of Dale Brown's earlier thriller, Flight of the Old Dog - to remove the DreamStar threat.

On Thursday, October 14, 1943, 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses set out for a strategic bombing raid on the factories in Schweinfurt. Sixty of those planes never returned and 650 men were lost during the course of that mission. It was the greatest failure that the United States Air Force had ever suffered and became known as "Black Thursday". Martin Caidin's Black Thursday: The Story of the Schweinfurt Raid is a brilliant account of that day that should never be forgotten. This audiobook uncovers in thrilling detail the build-up to that fateful raid.

It is 1939, and working-class Evie Bishop has received a scholarship to study mathematics at Oxford when tragedy turns her life upside down. Evie must seek a new future for herself and, inspired to contribute to the war effort, joins the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Ops Room plotter. Posted to a fighter station on the Sussex Coast, Evie befriends two other WAAFs. But the German bombers seem to know more than they should about the base’s operations, and soon Evie, May and Jess are caught up in a world more dangerous than they ever imagined.

After a punishing war with an artificial intelligence threat (AIT), the world mobilizes to search for other potential menaces. Carl Anderson, a former Los Angeles Police officer, now works for a joint task force with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After investigating a lead in Phoenix Arizona, Carl and his are tasked with hunting down an illusive AI he believes is housed in an Armada of ships in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This second short story in a series reveals that a simple algorithm can take on a life of its own. Both Lucky and Kathy make an appearance in this sequel...

Speaking of War: Quotes on Conflict serves as a heavy jumbo reference book documenting pithy, humorous, droll, or even ironic commentary surrounding and describing the machinations of warfare over the millenia. Culled from military historians, scholars, politicians, reporters, authors, generals and soldiers, the work is separated by categories for ease of use. Covered here are all forms of war in all mediums—land, sea and air, conventional and unconventional—and occurring all over the world. There is a great deal of history here, so readers must be careful: they might learn something. ...

Sherman Lead is the gripping story of a year flying the F-4 in combat during the Vietnam War, told through the eyes of a fighter pilot. Operating out of Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand in 1968-69, Gail Peck and his squadronmates in the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing were tasked with flying combat missions into North Vietnam and Laos. The F-4 was heavily involved in the air-to-ground mission at this time, with targets being well defended by enemy anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles.

On America's newest combat base, U.S. Air Force aerial warfare expert Major General Patrick McLanahan and his crew of daring engineers are devising the air combat unit of the future. Known as Air Battle Force, it can launch concentrated, stealthy, precision-guided firepower to any spot on the globe within hours. And soon McLanahan and his warriors will have their first target.

With the Botam Army advancing on them and the battle lost, the situation is desperate, Pilot Sergeant Two Zuri Onai is ordered to retreat for evacuation off the planet. But when her drone spots a wounded Techno soldier behind the Botam forces, abandoned by his command, is there anything she can do, even if she wanted to? Follow orders, save herself, and get the heck out of Dodge, or . . . do what? She’s an Air Force drone pilot, not Army infantry. When the barbarians are at the gate, every person in uniform will have to make a decision that could very well be the difference between life ...

Keep your eyes on the radar… Austin ‘Sparky’ Calder wasn’t dumb – he was a realist. If fairytales and fables were true? He was the ogre or troll in the story. Luck was not on his side and there was no magical potion, no charm, no magic wand that would change that fact. He was reckless to the point it was dangerous… and part of the reason he ended up in Ghazni in the first place! … Just believe. Giselle Beck was a daydreamer, an optimist, and was determined to always look for a silver lining or magical rainbow. It was just harder to see sometimes when your location was a desert...

The Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 is the most advanced multi-role combat aircraft in the world. Capable of flying at nearly twice the speed of sound and powering to a height of more than 10 miles in less time than it takes to boil a kettle, a single Typhoon can also deliver a heavy bombload with such lethal precision that a whole squadron of Lancasters could not have guaranteed the same result.

In his 80s, Peter William Tremayne recounts 60 years of high-risk adventures from all corners of the world: as far south as Antarctica, as deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, as high as the peaks of the Himalaya, to name just a few. Often reckless, always challenging, Peter realizes it’s time to share his escapades before his luck, or time runs out. The incredible flying and climbing adventures of one of New Zealand’s most unique mountaineers and pilots, yet unsung and forgotten in his country of birth.

An award-winning, beautifully written story, heartbreaking at times, about a young American who flew over the treacherous skies of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, as depicted in the Masters of the Air TV series from the book by Donald L. Miller. Finding Bomb Boogie is a book many cannot put down. Informative, riveting, and suspense-driven as the author searches for her father’s World War II story long after he has passed away—finally bringing understanding, acceptance, and closure to a complicated but loving relationship many decades later. This is the story of a quiet, young ...

Packed with breathtaking air battles and ground tactics, this new addition to the Great Generals series features the controversial command and strategies of the former Air Force Chief of Staff. Curtis LeMay was a terrifying, complex, and brilliant general. In World War II, he ordered the firebombing of Tokyo and was in charge when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

At exactly midnight on December 31, every electronic device made in China for the last 30 years stops working! From the U.S. electrical grid and all its back-ups, engine control-management systems, early warning systems on U.S. satellites, every motor vehicle, aircraft and ship made after 1985, to even simple memory chips inside children’s teddy bears—every electronic fuse, resistor, or connector that was “Made in China” becomes dormant… forever. At one minute past midnight on January 1st, every modern television broadcast of the U.S. New Year’s Eve festivities on the East Coast...

A few years after his release from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, in 1973, Colonel Joseph Kittinger retired from the Air Force. Restless and unchallenged, he turned to ballooning, a lifelong passion as well as a constant diversion for his imagination during his imprisonment. His primary goal was a solitary circumnavigation of the globe, and in its pursuit he set several ballooning distance records, including the first solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1984. But the aeronautical feats that first made him an American hero had occurred a quarter of a century earlier....

This book brings to light some of the lost stories of Indian aviators who built the very foundations of human and physical infrastructure for what is now the world's fourth largest air force. It benefits from several first-person interviews with some of the last Indian survivors of World War II, enabling a level of fidelity that is quite rare among Indian histories.