Fighters: The World's Great Aces and Their Planes

The story of air warfare and fighter aircraft is almost as old as aviation itself. When war came shortly after the Wright brothers' first flight, it didn't take long for militaries to recognize the uses (though not imediately offensive) of the airplane. This book goes back to those early, clumsy beginnings, tracing the history of dogfighting from the Red Baron until Desert Storm, with stops in Britain (as in "Battle of"), Korea and Vietnam. This is more of a coffee table book, and few aviation buffs will find anything that new. An historical survey of fighter aircraft is a bit ambitious for a single book, even as slim as this one. But the pictures are excellent, and the reading, if light, is engaging. The author also remains close to the humans who drive these killer machines - from brooding Frank Luke and the cold-blooded Richtoven to the WWII aces turned jet-age wing commanders like Robin Olds. The author wisely breaks down the periods rather than consolidate them, and also has separate chapters for each nation. It's in WWI chapters that the author shines - his tales of the early aces give those pioneer warriors the attention that usually goes to pilots of Mustangs, Sabrejets and Fulcrums. The technology was barely existent to get planes in the air, let alone coordinate them (no radar or wireless radio was available; even in the next war, Russian pilots preferred their slow and unmaneauverable lend-lease P-39 fighters over faster and more agile Yaks, because the American planes came with radio), and even tactics weren't rigidly enforced (German ace Boelke warned his sqaudronmates against letting more than one plane attack an enemy, since in the fray, the two wingmen might collide - a fear that turned true when Boelke collided with a fellow Albatross while he and the wingmen concentrated on a single enemy plane). Even when air superiority was achieved, the weak technology of the age gave this little meaning - the British had air superiority over the Somme, yet still lost in one day more men than America lost in a decade in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the story thins out after WWI, and the author feels comfortable enough to rely on the same material aviation fans have seen in countless forgettable discovery-channel documentaries. Although the pictures are great, the author runs out of stories to in them to. Nevertheless, the pictures are still enough reason for your resident flyin fool to appreciate.