Fighter Planes

By Bill Gunston

Book Overview

Trace the history of fighter planes from the earliest biplanes to today's jet fighters. Book jacket. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764106457
• ISBN13: 9780764106453
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
• Length: 31 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.7" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 10 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 9

Customer Reviews

Suitable if all you need is a historical survey of fighter aircraft

The demands of war and preparing for war have pushed the development of warplanes at an astonishing pace. Before the First World War, few people believed that planes would be anything more than an asterisk in combat. This assumption was quickly proven false, as it took only a short time before aircraft were an integral part of every nation's arsenal. The pace of improvement accelerated once again in the Second World War as the fighter planes of 1939 were deathtraps compared to what was in the skies at the end of the war. This book is a brief survey of the development of fighter planes, where illustrations and brief captions are used to describe the planes that battled and died in the skies. Some technical details are included, but not enough to explain the technical wonders of these machines. The last pages cover the planes about to enter service after the start of the twenty-first century. If you are interested in learning the basic history of the fighter plane, then this book will serve your purposed. For any depth, it is necessary to look elsewhere.

history of planes

Discover why pilots started firing pistols from planes, how the use of planes changed in the first world war, the flying aces and their planes during the battle of Britain, how aerial combat and attacks from the air affected the Second World War, the equipment and clothing of fighter pilots, past and present and the fighter plantes of the future. More than 80 color illustrations.