From humble beginnings in 1911 with floatplanes, by the 1930s, the US Navy possessed dirigibles and were introducing fighter planes. By the start of WW2, monoplane fighters were replacing bi-planes and a major aircraft carrier build was underway. Fighters such as the Grumman FLF Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair were joined by carrier attack aircraft such as the Dauntless, Devastator and Helldriver. All these and more are described in expert detail and illustrated in this fine book. Future projects are also covered.

The life of many combatants in The Great War was often short and brutish. But there were choices for some. Taking to the air was an attractive alternative to the slime, stench and gore of the trenches. The prospect of flying in the Royal Navy, the Senior Service, Nelson's Navy, must have been irresistible to any adventurous teenager – the best aeroplanes on the best ships with the best sailors that ever existed – or so he might have been led to believe. The Royal Naval Air Service was sorely tested, and not necessarily by the enemy. The casualties of the sea and its perils, and of accident and mechanical failure, were catastrophic. But this critical battle between young pilots in their infant flying machines and unpredictable events forged the pathway for our modern conceits of war – missiles, drones, giant aircraft carriers, weapons of space.

Originally published in 2011 this book has been re-released in February 2018. 'This is a book everyone should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks . . . this prince of pilots . . . had a charmed life in every sense of the word' - George Bernard Shaw

This is the biography of Henry Crowe whose career encompassed time as an infantryman with the Royal Irish Regiment during the First World War, an observer with the RFC and fledgling RAF, a pilot in Ireland at the time of the Irish War of Independence, a photographic officer and flight commander in Iraq, and Commanding Officer of Nos. 23 and 74 Squadrons. His memories of time spent in Iraq and on the North West Frontier between the wars have a real resonance today, illustrating just how little has changed in some respects.

In a few short years after 1914 the Royal Navy practically invented naval air warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made naval air power a reality. By 1918 the RN was so far ahead of other navies that a US Navy observer sent to study the British use of aircraft at sea concluded that ‘any discussion of the subject must first consider their methods’. Indeed, by the time the war ended the RN was training for a carrier-borne attack by torpedo-bombers on the German fleet in its bases – over two decades before the first successful employment of this tactic, against the Italians at Taranto.

The early years of aviation were marked by flimsy, unreliable machines and daring adventurous young men. One of the pioneer aviators leading the way in Britain was F. Warren Merriam who, following Louis Blériot’s first flight across the Channel in 1809, joined the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company through which he obtained a Royal Aero Club’s aviator’s certificate.

Malcolm Smith has collected a compendium of reminiscences from pilots who flew for the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines during the First World War.

Without the Royal Navy in two World Wars, Britain would have at best lost, and worst ceased to exist. This book salutes the services's incredible achievements over the last 100 years. Foreword by Dan Snow

In 1910 the first aircraft was successfully launched from a small wooden platform on a stationary ship. Just four years later, seaplane-carrying warships were being used to launch the first naval air raids, and by 1918 the first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck was in service.

The story and diaries of Jack McCleery RNAS RAF, from his time on the newly commissioned aircraft carrier HMS FURIOUS through to witnessing the surrender of the High Seas Fleet.