Peter L. Jakab:Visions of a Flying Machine (Smithsonian History of Aviation Series)
- hardcover 2014, ISBN: 9781853101489
Henry Holt and Co.. Very Good. 6.22 x 1.24 x 9.51 inches. Hardcover. 2014. 368 pages. <br>The untold story of the birth of the Predator dron e, a wonder weapon that transformed the … More...
Henry Holt and Co.. Very Good. 6.22 x 1.24 x 9.51 inches. Hardcover. 2014. 368 pages. <br>The untold story of the birth of the Predator dron e, a wonder weapon that transformed the American military, reshap ed modern warfare, and sparked a revolution in aviation The crea tion of the first weapon in history whose operators can stalk and kill an enemy on the other side of the globe was far more than c lever engineering. As Richard Whittle shows in Predator, it was o ne of the most profound developments in the history of military a nd aerospace technology. Once considered fragile toys, drones we re long thought to be of limited utility. The Predator itself was resisted at nearly every turn by the military establishment, but a few iconoclasts refused to see this new technology smothered a t birth. The remarkable cast of characters responsible for develo ping the Predator includes a former Israeli inventor who turned h is Los Angeles garage into a drone laboratory, two billionaire br others marketing a futuristic weapon to help combat Communism, a pair of fighter pilots willing to buck their white-scarf fraterni ty, a cunning Pentagon operator nicknamed Snake, and a secretive Air Force organization known as Big Safari. When an Air Force tea m unleashed the first lethal drone strikes in 2001 for the CIA, t he military's view of drones changed nearly overnight. Based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews, Predator revea ls the dramatic inside story of the creation of a revolutionary w eapon that forever changed the way we wage war and opened the doo r to a new age in aviation. Editorial Reviews Review Fascinati ng...[Whittle] has combed every available document and talked to almost every American participant in drone research and developme nt. The result is a soup-to-nuts--or ground-to-air--history of th e world's most potent unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. ?The Wall Street Journal Fresh and authoritative ... [Whittle] delivers ac tion-packed details about how the CIA and the Pentagon used armed Predators to hunt for al-Qaeda leaders immediately after 9/11. ? The Washington Post [A] superbly researched, clearly written boo k.... [Predator is] important because it is about a flying machin e ... with consequences so enormous as to nearly defy everyday la nguage.... Whittle is no unthinking patriot. He raises the questi ons that anybody who cares about the sacredness of human life oug ht to ask. ?The Dallas Morning News Superb... A lively, well-wri tten genesis story ... During five years of research and hundreds of interviews, Whittle unearthed a long list of revelations abou t the armed, remotely piloted aircraft.... And he adds scintillat ing details about its role in the hunt for top al-Qaeda leaders. ?San Diego Union-Tribune Predator ... tells a dramatic story whi le impressively detailing the long and often-threatened creation of the armed drone that would revolutionize modern warfare. ?Dail y News (New York) Read Predator for the fascinating story of how the unmanned aerial vehicle revolution came about. ?Foreign Poli cy Endlessly interesting and full of implication....There's plen ty of geekery befitting a Tom Clancy novel to keep readers entert ained... Whittle's account comes to a pointed conclusion: drone t echnology has already changed how we die, but what remains to be seen is how it 'may change the way people live.' ?Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Engrossing... [An] impressively researched, tho ught-provoking history. ?Publishers Weekly [The Predator's] hist ory is longer, and more surprising, than most readers probably re alize. Fascinating both as military history and as a look inside a hot contemporary social issue. ?Booklist Military and aviation aficionados will learn from and enjoy this in-depth work. ?Libra ry Journal A brilliant and detailed account of the growing pains of the weapons system of the future. Whittle fully captures the political struggle that almost downed the nascent Predator progra m. ?Richard A. Clarke, former National Security Council counter-t errorism director and author of Against All Enemies Richard Whit tle has delivered what will surely be the definitive history of h ow the United States came to arm its drones. Both deeply reported and very well written, Predator joins a very short list of books about the future of warfare that will engage any audience, from the specialist to the general reader. ?Peter Bergen, author of Ma nhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad Predator is a must-read. Love it or hate it, the armed drone rep resented a transformation??in military technology. Like every rev olution, this one had a colorful cast of characters, and Whittle tells their story with the insight and authority of a veteran mil itary journalist, drawing on inside sources in the Air Force, the CIA and defense industry. This book should be on the shelf of an yone who wants to understand military power in the 21st century. ?David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post and author of The Director All future attempts to understand the how and why o f the drone era's beginnings, and the crucial personalities, disa greements, and decisions that shaped this technology, will be bui lt on Richard Whittle's authoritative and original account. Preda tor tells the story of the real people whose insights, biases, an d experience changed the realities of modern warfare. ?James Fall ows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and author o f National Defense About the Author Richard Whittle is author o f The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osp rey. A Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and 2013-14 Ver ville Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum, Whittle has co vered the military for three decades, including twenty-two years as Pentagon correspondent for The Dallas Morning News. He lives i n Chevy Chase, Maryland. About the Author Richard Whittle is aut hor of The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-2 2 Osprey. A Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and 2013-1 4 Verville Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum, Whittle h as covered the military for three decades, including twenty-two y ears as Pentagon correspondent for The Dallas Morning News. He li ves in Chevy Chase, Maryland. ., Henry Holt and Co., 2014, 3, Airlife Publishing Ltd. Very Good/Very Good. 1990. Hard Cover. 8vo 1853101486 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Illustrated with photographs. 263 pages clean and tight. Eighty-five years after the invention of the airplane, the work of Wilbur and Orville Wright has lost none of its power to fascinate and intrigue us. Visions of a Flying Machine, unlike other, more biographical books on the Wrights, explores the inventive methodology that led to the Wright brothers' momentous flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. It takes us straight to the heart of their achievement, focusing on the technology and offering a clear and concise statement of precisely what the Wrights accomplished and how. At its core, this is a book about the process of invention. Jakab defines the problem of the flying machine as it was understood when the Wrights entered the field in 1899, then describes how the brothers identified and resolved the range of technical puzzles that had baffled the best-trained engineers and scientists for over a century. Along the way, Jakab encourages an understanding of and appreciation for the fundamental nature of the Wright genius-the extraordinary ability of the brothers to conceive solutions to the most difficult technical problems by visualizing these abstractions as concrete graphic images. Particularly well covered in the book are the Wrights' critical wind-tunnel experiments of 1901, which enabled them to solve an error in wing design that had long frustrated their efforts to fly. Jakab's detailed treatment of the Wright technology complements the biographical approach taken by Tom D. Crouch in his landmark study of the Wrights' lives and personalities: The Bishop's Boys. This book is about the invention of the airplane, but it also offers important insight into the fundamental nature of technical creativity in general. It will be of interest not only to Wright enthusiasts but also to all historians and students of innovation in technology and science. ., Airlife Publishing Ltd, 1990, 3<
