When Bob Goebel left home to join the Army Air Corps in 1942, he was 19 years old and a high school graduate. Cadet Goebel worked his way steadily through Basic, Primary, and Advanced phases of military flight training, and found in himself an aptitude for flight. After graduation from flight school, with his new wings and new commission as a 2d Lieutenant, he and his classmates were posted to a fighter squadron defending the Panama Canal. By the spring of 1944 he was on his way to Italy and the 31st Fighter Group, one of the top fighter outfits of the war.

A larger-than-life hero with a towering personality, Robin Olds was a graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army. In World War II, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—a double ace with twelve aerial victories. But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend.

In fascinating and personal detail, and based on exclusive diaries and audio recordings from his mission, Tim Peake takes listeners closer than ever before to experience what life in space is really like: the sacrifice that astronauts make in being apart from their families, the sights, the smells, the fear, the exhilaration and the deep and abiding wonder of the view from space. Limitless is a book about the power of following our dreams - however unlikely they may seem - and of striving to reach our potential, even when we might not believe in it ourselves.

On August 9, 1945, on the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, a 25-year-old American Army Air Corps major named Charles W. Sweeney climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress in command of his first combat mission, one devised specifically to bring a long and terrible war to a necessary conclusion.... The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs.

Dan Pedersen takes listeners on a colorful and thrilling ride - from Miramar to Area 51 to the decks of aircraft carriers in war and peace - through a historic moment in air warfare. He helped establish a legacy that was built by him and his "Original Eight" - the best of the best - and carried on for six decades by some of America's greatest leaders. Topgun is a heartfelt and personal testimonial to patriotism, sacrifice, and American innovation and daring.

Relive six decades of flying helicopters, including an extended tour in Vietnam and the mountains of Afghanistan, with a little Iraq, Kuwait, and National Guard thrown in. This is Minuteman: Two, Three…Go! recounts Wayne Chasson’s times, from the early, young, and dumb days to becoming a more seasoned pilot of Huey and other helicopters in three American wars and the National Guard here at home. Chasson relives it all for us in this gritty and honest memoir — with humility, humor, and gratitude — as he himself is still trying to figure out how he made it through alive.

"The sky was full of dying airplanes" as American Liberator bombers struggled to return to North Africa after their daring low-level raid on the oil refineries of Ploesti. They lost 446 airmen and 53 planes, but Philip Ardery's plane came home. This pilot was to take part in many more raids on Hitler's Europe, including air cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This vivid firsthand account records one man's experience of World War II air warfare.

Neil Hansen began his aviation career as a pilot for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. He spent more than a decade in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War as a captain for Air America, the CIA's airline that operated there during the Vietnam era and the Secret War in Laos. Neil reveled in the risky flying that fed his adrenaline addiction. Upon returning to the States, ultimately unable to find work and unable to let go of the Air America exhilaration rush, he saw the profession he loved come to an end when his trajectory veered off course.

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.

Rattler One-Seven puts you in the helicopter seat, to see the war in Vietnam through the eyes of an inexperienced pilot as he transforms himself into a seasoned combat veteran. Soon after the war, Gross wrote down his adventures, while his memory was still fresh with the events. Rattler One-Seven (his call sign) is written as he experienced it, using these notes along with letters written home to accurately preserve the mindset he had while in Vietnam.

Sometimes you do everything right, but it just isn't your day. A part fails and your helicopter comes apart in flight, or, another aircraft runs into you and the pieces of both fall to the ground below, or the enemy gunner pulls the trigger at just the right moment and his rounds find your aircraft in exactly the right spot to take it out of the sky. Whichever way it happens, it wasn't your day.

Catkiller 3-2 provides unique insights into the role of the tactical air controller, airborne (TACA) in I Corps as seen through the eyes of one of the pilots who flew low-flying, unarmed, single-engine aircraft in support of marine ground units during the Vietnam War. When Gen. William Westmoreland changed the marines' role in I Corps into a combat one, the Marines found themselves in need of more fixed wing aircraft to handle the TACA missions.

The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.

This is an action-packed, true adventure book that spans 35 years of airline flying. There are stories about transporting guns to Biafra in order to help the Independent Nigerians, flying cargo up and down the Berlin Air Corridor during the Cold War, as well as missions deep into Russia. Many of the stories in this book will put you on the edge of your seat; for example, when the author is forced to make a death-defying landing of a four-engine jetliner in total fog.

Da Nang Diary is the story of how, in Vietnam, an elite group of Air Force pilots fought a secret air war in Cessna 0-2 and OV-10 Bronco prop planes - flying as low as they could get. The eyes and ears of the fast-moving jets who rained death and destruction down on enemy positions, the forward air controller made an art form out of an air strike - knowing the targets, knowing where friendly troops were, and reacting with split-second, life-and-death decisions as a battle unfolded.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted the creation of a robust and deadly special operations force—Task Force Dagger. Alan C. Mack, Callsign Razor 03, led a team of MH-47E helicopters and armed MH-60s. Their two-fold mission–Personnel Recovery (PR) and Unconventional Warfare (UW) involved flying in terrain and weather previously not thought possible. If that wasn’t enough, they pushed the flight envelope of their specially modified Chinooks to the limit and beyond.

Relive six decades of flying helicopters, including an extended tour in Vietnam and the mountains of Afghanistan, with a little Iraq, Kuwait, and National Guard thrown in. This is Minuteman: Two, Three…Go! recounts Wayne Chasson’s times, from the early, young, and dumb days to becoming a more seasoned pilot of Huey and other helicopters in three American wars and the National Guard here at home. Chasson relives it all for us in this gritty and honest memoir — with humility, humor, and gratitude — as he himself is still trying to figure out how he made it through alive.

"The sky was full of dying airplanes" as American Liberator bombers struggled to return to North Africa after their daring low-level raid on the oil refineries of Ploesti. They lost 446 airmen and 53 planes, but Philip Ardery's plane came home. This pilot was to take part in many more raids on Hitler's Europe, including air cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. This vivid firsthand account records one man's experience of World War II air warfare.

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.

As the ground war struggled for success in Vietnam, it became intensely clear that the skies had to be owned by the allies for victory to have a chance. It was the F-4 and its pilots that made that possible. The author, a Phantom pilot himself, details intense stories of undaunted and valiant American pilots with their legendary fierce Phantom. These are personal stories of intrepid courage and self-sacrifice to get the mission done - whatever the cost.

Flying a multi-million pound fighter jet in hostile territory is not an everyday career, and it comes with a high degree of pressure and responsibility. It’s a dream job that takes years of ambition, training and commitment, but for Mandy Hickson, it was a dream that became reality. Find out about Mandy’s incredible journey to become one of the UK’s first female, fast-jet pilots and how she overcame many obstacles to develop the skills to succeed in such a demanding career.

Sometimes you do everything right, but it just isn't your day. A part fails and your helicopter comes apart in flight, or, another aircraft runs into you and the pieces of both fall to the ground below, or the enemy gunner pulls the trigger at just the right moment and his rounds find your aircraft in exactly the right spot to take it out of the sky. Whichever way it happens, it wasn't your day.

Catkiller 3-2 provides unique insights into the role of the tactical air controller, airborne (TACA) in I Corps as seen through the eyes of one of the pilots who flew low-flying, unarmed, single-engine aircraft in support of marine ground units during the Vietnam War. When Gen. William Westmoreland changed the marines' role in I Corps into a combat one, the Marines found themselves in need of more fixed wing aircraft to handle the TACA missions.

The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.

The Vietnam War is one of the most misunderstood military conflicts in 20th-century America. Showcasing 72 true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s.

Shoulder to shoulder with Strategic Air Command B-52s throughout the Cold War, the big delta-winged Vulcans of the Britain's V-bomber force faced down the Soviet threat to the West. In 1982, they were just months from retirement when they flew in anger for the first time. It was to be a record-breaking mission of breathtaking audacity: a single bomber launched from a remote island airbase to carry out what would be the longest-range air attack in history. An 8,000-mile round-trip.

In War for the Hell of It, Cobleigh shares his perspectives in a deeply personal account of a fighter pilot's life, one filled with moral ambiguity and military absurdities offset by the undeniable thrill of flying a fighter plane. With well-crafted prose that puts you into his Phantom's cockpit, Cobleigh vividly recounts the unexplainable loss of his wingman, the useless missions he flew, the need to trust his reflexes, eyesight, aggressiveness, and his survival instincts in the heat of combat.

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....

Americans are fascinated by the undeniable mystique of the elite world of Navy fighter pilots. In Bogeys and Bandits, Robert Gandt takes listeners on a thrilling ride in the FA-18 Hornet, one of the fastest, sleekest, and deadliest aircraft in the world. Gandt lived and worked with several pilots learning to fly the Hornet: the identical twins from Middle America; the computer nerd with a penchant for speed; the grandson of a Tuskegee Airman, trying to live up to a proud legacy; and two women dealing with the post-Tailhook world of the Navy.

On August 9, 1945, on the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, a 25-year-old American Army Air Corps major named Charles W. Sweeney climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress in command of his first combat mission, one devised specifically to bring a long and terrible war to a necessary conclusion.... The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Maj. Gen. Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs.