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Aviation Day Books for Adults




Howard Hughes : Aviator by George J. Marrett

Marrett, an experimental test pilot for Hughes Aircraft Company from 1969 to 1989, tells the inside story of Howard Hughes, the aviation genius who set speed records in the 1930s and went on to develop some of America's most famous aircraft and weapons, becoming the country's first billionaire. B&w historical photos are included.











The Pilot's Wife : A Novel (Fortune's Rocks #3) by Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve's hauntingly beautiful #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection about tragedy, grief, betrayal, and the 'impossibility of knowing another person.'

As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has prepared her for a late-night knock that lets her know her husband has died in a crash.

Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time.

As Kathryn struggles with her grief, she descends into a maelstrom of publicity stirred up by the modern hunger for the details of tragedy. Even before the plane is located in waters off the Irish coast, the relentless scrutiny of her husband's life begins to bring a bizarre personal mystery into focus. Could there be any truth to the increasingly disturbing rumors that he had a secret life?



Traces the Marine Corps involvement in aerial combat, describes the major aircraft it used, and assesses the current role of the Corps



How does the U.S. Navy train the best and brightest pilots to fly the fastest fighter planes in the world? Veteran journalist Douglas Waller spent two years finding out, by observing and participating in the physically and psychologically grueling training program. For the first time, readers get a rare glimpse of the split-second decisions, aerial dogfights, heart-stopping landings, intense competition, and furious determination that builds today's elite fighter pilots.


Newly Expanded Edition, Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum



The fourth volume in the Aviation Century series is the dramatic story of the worldshrinking developments in commercial aviation through the end of the twentieth century, in which airliners grew from frail biplanes to huge Jumbo jets. In the process, advanced air travel brought with it worldwide political, economic and social change. In 2004 commercial airlines carried an estimated 1.6 billion passengers.


Each new generation of transport aircraft has brought greater reliability, economy and safety, and increased global commerce through technological advances. Each day millions of shipments now travel by air between continents via sophisticated air cargo and air express systems.



Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi‑day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly, and deadly, pursuit.Fly Girlsrecounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky. O’Brien weaves together the stories of five remarkable women: Florence Klingensmith, a high‑school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota; Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee; Amelia Earhart, the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled; Ruth Nichols, who chafed at the constraints of her blue‑blood family’s expectations; and Louise Thaden, the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita. Together, they fought for the chance to race against the men — and in 1936 one of them would triumph in the toughest race of all.


The One-Stop Reference for the most popular aircraft ever flown!


The Plane & Pilot editors have done a tremendous job providing readers with detailed descriptions and photographs for hundreds of the most popular aircraft from around the world and answers to the questions most commonly asked by pilots.


Includes details on:


Airframe and powerplant data

Fun and historical facts

Standard data and performance specifications

And more…

Throughout the well-illustrated pages, you'll find interesting anecdotes on prominent manufacturers, airplanes, and industry personalities; a comprehensive source for information on aircraft no longer in production, as well as new models of current production aircraft, representing the majority of civilian aircraft in service throughout the world.



Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg

This is a most compelling story of a most significant life; the most private of public figures finally revealed with a sweep and detail never before possible. In the skilled hands of A. Scott Berg, this is at once Lindbergh the hero--and Lindbergh the man. Awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. From one of America's most acclaimed biographers comes the definitive account of the life of one of the nation's most legendary, controversial, and enigmatic figures: aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.


Rogue Forces (Patrick McLanahan #15) by Dale Brown

Dale Brown, whose books live on the New York Times bestseller list—alongside the novels of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and other superstars of the military adventure genre—triumphs again with Rogue Forces. A riveting and relentlessly exciting thriller, Rogue Forces explores a timely and important question in this age of Blackwell and Halliburton: What would happen if the Army’s private security contractors became uncontrollably powerful?Brown’s popular character, Patrick McLanahan, is going Rogue in this chillingly plausible adventure that further solidifies Dale Brown’s reputation as “the best military writer in the country” (Clive Cussler).


Takeoff (Walker #1) by Joseph Reid

Still reeling from a devastating personal tragedy, air marshal turned investigator Seth Walker embarks on his first case. All he has to do is accompany female pop star Max Magic to Los Angeles and deliver her to the FBI. But when their routine flight ends in a hail of gunfire at LAX, Walker has no choice but to take the frightened diva on the run.

After a second attack leaves him battered and bloody, Walker realizes he cannot trust the FBI. To keep his client alive, he must use a patchwork of trusted aviation contacts to get her home to Austin, where the key suspects await.

But as they race to stay one step ahead of their deadly pursuers, the biggest danger of all may be what they’re heading toward—the dark secrets that Max herself has been keeping…


Now a major motion picture from Clint Eastwood, starring Tom Hanks—the inspirational autobiography by one of the most captivating American heroes of our time, Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger—the pilot who miraculously landed a crippled US Airways Flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew.

On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed a remarkable emergency landing when Captain "Sully" Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways Flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. His cool actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration worldwide. His story is now a major motion picture from director / producer Clint Eastwood and stars Tom Hanks, Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart.

Sully's story is one of dedication, hope, and preparedness, revealing the important lessons he learned through his life, in his military service, and in his work as an airline pilot. It reminds us all that, even in these days of conflict, tragedy and uncertainty, there are values still worth fighting for—that life's challenges can be met if we're ready for them.



Price of Duty : A Novel (Patrick McLanahan #21) by Dale Brown

The U.S. and its Western allies come under a diabolical Russian cyber warfare attack in this action-packed military techno-thriller fromNew York Timesbestselling master Dale Brown.

In a top-secret location deep in the Ural Mountains, Russian President Gennadiy Gryzlov has built his nation’s most dangerous weapon since the atomic bomb—a fearsome tool to gain superiority in Russia’s long-running battle with the West. From inside Perun Aerie—an intricate network of underground tunnels and chambers that is the heart of the Russian cyber warfare program—he is launching a carefully plotted series of attacks on an unsuspecting U.S. and its European allies.

The first strike targets Warsaw, Poland, where Russian malware wipes out the records of nearly every Polish bank account, imploding the country’s financial system and panicking the rest of Europe. When Stacy Anne Barbeau, the besieged American president, fails to effectively combat the Russian threat, Brad McLanahan, on some well-earned R&R with his new Polish girlfriend, Major Nadia Rozek, is called back to duty.

As the Russians’ deadly tactics escalate—including full-scale assaults on Europe’s power grid and the remote hijacking of a commercial airliner that kills hundreds of civilians—McLanahan and his Scion team kick into gear, arming themselves with the most advanced technological weaponry for the epic struggle ahead. A patriot in the mold of his father, the late general Patrick McLanahan, Brad knows firsthand the price of freedom.

With the world’s fate hanging in the balance, will Scion succeed in turning back Gryzlov before he can realize his terrifying ambition to conquer the globe? And what will the toll of victory be?

Tailspin by Sandra Brown

A daring pilot races against time to deliver an important package -- and keep it from falling into the wrong hands -- in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller of spine-tingling suspense and tantalizing romance.


Rye Mallett, a fearless "freight dog" pilot charged with flying cargo to far-flung locations, is rough-spoken and all business, but soft on regulations when they get in the way of meeting a deadline. But above all, he has a rock-solid reputation: he will fly in the foulest weather, day or night, and deliver the goods safely to their destination. So when Rye is asked to fly into a completely fogbound northern Georgia town and deliver a mysterious black box to a Dr. Lambert, he doesn't ask questions.


As Rye's plane nears the isolated landing strip, more trouble than inclement weather awaits him. Greeted with a sabotage attempt on his plane, he has barely recovered from the crash landing when he meets Dr. Brynn O'Neal, who claims she is receiving the box for Dr. Lambert. Though he has a strict "no-involvement policy" when it comes to others' problems, Rye finds himself being irresistibly drawn in to the intrigue surrounding his cargo . . . and to the mysterious and alluring Brynn.


Soon Rye and Brynn are in a treacherous forty-eight-hour race to deliver the box. With everyone from law enforcement officials to hired guns hot on their heels, they must learn to trust each other to protect their valuable cargo from those who would kill for it.




A re-creation of the events inside the doomed Electra flown by Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan. The authors offer evidence that the plane just simply ran out of fuel short of their Howland destination, and Earhart and Noonan were not captured by Japanese soldiers or islanders. The book covers the flying conditions under which Earhart flew - in an era before radar, with unreliable communications, grass landing strips and poorly mapped islands.

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