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Using contemporary documents, authors Dan Sharp and Calum E. Douglas explain and explore the development and eventual failure of this fascinating 'secret project'.Chosen in 1941 to replace the Bf 109 as the Luftwaffe's standard front-line fighter, Messerschmitt's innovative Me 309 embodied a wealth of hard-won experience from the Battle of Britain. Its sturdy tricycle undercarriage would make landings safer, its capacious wings could accommodate much heavier weaponry, its retractable radiator would make it aerodynamically clean, its pressure cabin would allow high-altitude operations and its ejection seat would help preserve the Luftwaffe's most precious asset - its pilots.All of this was made possible by a fuselage specifically tailored to accommodate Germany's newest and most powerful fighter engines: Daimler-Benz's DB 603 and Junkers' Jumo 213. Production of up to 800 Me 309s a month had been planned by May 1942 - more than all other German fighter types combined. Yet the type's advancement from prototype to full series production was reduced to a crawl, not by technical difficulties but by political in-fighting, deception and manipulation behind closed doors.The Me 309 was set up to fail - doomed to join a lost generation of mid-war Luftwaffe combat aircraft alongside types such as Focke-Wulf's Fw 190 C and Junkers' Ju 288 - but why and by whom? Messerschmitt Me 309 Development & Politics, the first book ever written solely about this aircraft, sets out its full history - from its forerunners and commissioning to its eventual cancellation and sale to the Japanese military.Using contemporary documents, authors Dan Sharp and Calum E. Douglas explain and explore the development and eventual failure of this fascinating 'secret project'.

There are many myths surrounding the development of the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. Its unparalleled performance is beyond doubt; easily able to outpace its opponents and possessing the firepower to shred them in seconds.

Provides coverage of: Edinburgh and Leith; the East Coast Main Line and the Waverley Route; the Forth Bridge and East Fife; the West Fife and Clackmannan; and the West Lothian and Stirling to Hilton Junction.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was Britain's head of state for a remarkable seven decades.She was revered for her steadfastness, admired for her dedication to her country, loved for her sense of humour and the way she put everyone she met at ease.The Queen was, quite simply, one of a kind. She was a record breaker - her reign was the longest of any British monarch; she was the world's oldest monarch; and she was the first British monarch to reach the age of 95. Not only that, her marriage to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, which lasted 73 years until his death in 2021, was the longest of any British sovereign.In tribute to a truly remarkable queen - who was also a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother - this publication looks back on her fascinating life, the people she met, the places she visited, her family and her commitment to her country and Commonwealth.This revised and updated edition, originally published as The Queen at 95, contains hundreds of carefully chosen images that mark her 70-year reign and pays tribute to her unwavering devotion to duty.

Crammed with previously unseen imagery, this book is a must-read for any aviation enthusiast.While the general history of Somerset's major aerospace manufacturer is well documented, many of Westland's lesser-known and often more adventurous products, projects and technologies most certainly are not. This new volume from authors Jeremy Graham, a former member of the company's Future Projects team and head of avionics and systems technology, and Dr Ron Smith, former head of Westland Future Projects and light attack helicopter chief design engineer, presents a highly detailed and fully illustrated exploration of the company's many innovative programmes and projects using documents, photos and illustrations from the official Westland - now Leonardo - archive.Fixed wing types, from the blended-wing Westland Dreadnought to Lysander, Whirlwind, Welkin and Wyvern-based projects and on to a variety of 1950s jet fighter designs, receive extensive coverage but Westland's greatest achievements have been in the field of rotary wing aircraft - and it is here that the book provides unparalleled insight. From adapted licence-built types such as the Wessex and Sea King to home-grown types such as Lynx and on to multinational collaborative efforts such as Merlin, Wildcat and the AW609 tiltrotor, the authors explore the technology developed and employed, the political and financial backdrop and the specific developments themselves. Along the way numerous unbuilt projects, such as attack and stealth helicopters as well as early military drones, not to mention a host of remarkable technological innovations are described in detail.Crammed with previously unseen imagery and written with unmatched authority, Westland - A History: Secret Projects and Cutting-Edge Technology is a must-read for any aviation enthusiast.

One of the main pillars of the new diesel fleet came in the form of the Brush company''s diesel locomotive for mixed traffic work, the ''Type 2'' referring to the power rating of their Mirrlees engines - 1,250hp.The name ''Brush'' it has to said is less than stirring after the fashion, say, of ''Deltics'' or ''Warships'' but an entire swath of British Railways, the Eastern Region, relied very heavily upon them for all manner of freight and passenger work; they were even suited to country branches in the wilds of East Anglia. In later years they were used much more widely, from the West Country to the far north of England. They were also long-lived, unlike many of their contemporaries that appeared in the ''Diesel Dawn'' of the 1950s and 1960s; the last was only withdrawn from service in 2017.

When it first appeared in 1992, Hondäs CBR900RR FireBlade was a revelation. Light, agile and powerful, it broke the 750cc sportsbike mould with its 893cc engine and established the FireBlade legend. Over the next three decades more than half a million FireBlades and Fireblades would be sold, making it one of the most successful and recognisable motorcycles on the planet. Aside from sales success, it has achieved phenomenal sporting success too - particularly in road races such as the Isle of Man TT.The latest model, the 2022 CBR1000RR-R Fireblade, is a natural evolution of the type and a worthy successor to the FireBlades of old. It represents the peak of sportsbike innovation and development today - just as the CBR900RR did back in 1992.In this fully-illustrated 132-page publication, Classic Motorcycle Mechanics editor and Fireblade fanatic Bertie Simmonds tells the complete story of this iconic model.

"...an excellent study of the effort involved in deriving the basic idea of what a Service feels it needs to field in order to carry out a mission and then how industry attempts to translate those ideas into hardware that can perform in the real world." --The Journal of the Air Force Historical FoundationThe Soviet Union's first successful atomic bomb detonation in August 1949 was a wakeup call for US Navy planners. The possibility of a single Soviet aircraft wiping out an entire convoy of merchant ships with a nuclear weapon had suddenly become very real. With military budgets having shrunk prior to the Korean War, it was simply not possible to provide a US Navy escort for every convoy. But what if those vessels could be provided with an effective means of self-defence - an aircraft able to function as both a helicopter and a fighter, launching from and landing on the small deck of a Liberty Ship? It was a risky concept but aviation technology was now advancing at an unprecedented pace and the American aircraft manufacturers were ready to meet the challenge head on.The result was the US Navy's Convoy Fighter competition of November 1950 - a contest to produce a turboprop-powered 'tailsitter' single-seat aircraft able to operate from a largely unmodified merchant vessel. A host of designs were submitted by the likes of Convair, Lockheed, Martin and Northrop, among them some of the strangest and most outlandish concept aircraft ever committed to paper. And two were actually built in prototype form: the Convair XFY-1 'Pogo' and the Lockheed XFV-1.In American Interceptor: US Navy Convoy Fighter Projects, author and illustrator Jared A. Zichek focuses on the 'paper projects', the unbuilt studies submitted to the Navy. Lavishly illustrated throughout, the book showcases these fascinating artifacts of what might have been, from a golden age of aerospace history unlikely to be equalled or exceeded.

"For those with a passion for the iconic and revered F-14, I can highly recommend this volume. Buy a copy, you will not be disappointed. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this book as a solid 10, no question about it." - Large Scale PlanesHalf Century, Baby! marks the 50th anniversary of the first two Grumman F-14A fleet squadrons (VF-1 and VF-2) receiving their first Tomcats during the summer of 1973. This lavishly illustrated volume tells the story of the aircraft from the beginning to its sunset of service with the US Navy in 2006; the longest operational career of any Naval Fighter to date. Preeminent Tomcat historian and former Tomcat RIO Dave Parsons explains the history of the F-14 decade by decade through the words of the aircrew who flew it. Artist Mads Bangsø brings his superlative illustration talents to the forefront with more than 120 F-14 profiles as well as highly accurate fully rendered recreations historical events featuring the Tomcat, highlighting the interesting markings of the aircraft (including helmets) as well as other aircraft associated with the Tomcat Community. The book features pertinent colour photography throughout, interwoven with the illustrations to complement the text.

Part 1: IndustryThis book is a photographic study of the 19th and early 20th century British industrial scene when it recovered in the 20 years after World War 2, only to die away altogether in the mid-1980s. Extended captions describe each picture and the introductory texts to each section include some of my contemporary, personal and rather purple descriptions of some of the best, or worst (whichever your viewpoint) of the old industrial scenes in the period 1950-65, when Britain still led the world in engineering, shipbuilding, merchant fleet, commerce, exports, prestige and in almost every other respect. That was the end of an era of pre-eminence. Apparently, all went to waste because thrifty industrialists were reluctant to modernize and adapt in the face of rising foreign competition and there were two decades of industrial strife and short working weeks in the 1970s and '80s for higher wages than could be justified by the competition. The strikes delayed delivery dates on orders and gave British industry a reputation for being slow as well as expensive. Now one of Britain's main exports is scrap metal to foreign steelworks - and we buy foreign steel! This book is also a lament for that lost industrial Britain and probably the only book to extol the aesthetic potential and interesting contribution those industrial elements made to our townscapes. Much of the late-Victorian industrial architecture was a credit to our townscapes. Most of what we see in these pictures in Parts 1 to 4 has disappeared almost without trace, except for archaeology, and the scenes have changed beyond recognition as if those industries had never been there. Thus new generations of residents have no idea of what their home towns produced for us. In some cases we say: 'Good riddance to the dark, satanic mills' but in other cases we are sorry for the loss in terms of employment and the contribution to the economy and the character of the built environment.Part 2: Industrial Railways and CanalsThe Industrial Revolution would not have evolved were it not for the canals to carry the materials and goods to where they were needed. Their main cargo was coal, which, combined with the earlier use of iron ore, led to the invention of the stationary steam engine driving machines and, in turn, to the locomotive engine. The horse-drawn railways taking coal to the river and canal wharves were superseded by steam railways, which competed with the canals and in some cases amalgamated with canal companies to their mutual benefit where there were rail-served canal basins and wharves, as in the Black Country. The economy and speed of the railways gradually superseded the canals, which declined during the first half of the 20th century, except for some of the broad canals and canalized river 'navigations' radiating inland from the Humber that still serve industry in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. Most of the traffic taken by the canals and the railways is now conveyed by lorries using the public highway instead of their own right of way.Part 3: Wharves and WarehousesThe photographs in part 3 are almost entirely of the older docks and riverside wharves on the Pool of London and the Mersey docks at Birkenhead and Liverpool. London River was the name used by lightermen, bargemen, tugmen and writers of the industrial era for the reaches of the Thames under the jurisdiction and conservancy of the City of London Corporation, from the London Stone at Staines, Middlesex, to the London Stone off the Isle of Grain in Kent. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century 'dockland' was what we called the neighborhood of the docks but in London it was regenerated as The Docklands, which are not docks at all but skyscraper office blocks, luxury flats, marinas and an airport on reclaimed docks, and around empty sheets of water downriver from Millwall to North Woolwich with no ships, no cargoes, no cranes, no stevedores and no porters - in fact, not a very interesting place at all and the social order has changed from the workers to the whizz-kids and the wealthy.Part 4: Streets and Slums, IntroductionIn part 3 we look at the ordinary streets of terraced houses, tenements, taverns, shops, hotels and warehouses in the industrial and dockland areas of our towns and cities in the mid-20th century. I say 'Streets and Slums' advisedly because only some of them were slums either because of disinterested landlords or tenants with bad habits, but most of homes here were kept as well as could be expected by house-proud and hard working people living in or near poverty. Conditions varied but some people had to be hardy and perseverant living with no bathroom, the w.c. in the backyard annex with the coalhouse or a shared w.c. on the next floor in the tenements. These humble homes of the people who did all the essential, hard work in industry were in stark contrast to the stately villas, mansions and castles of the industrialists who founded those industries, which suggests that the profits were very unreasonably distributed.Part 5: The Acceptable Face of IndustryThis section is an antidote, if one were needed, to the foregoing pictures of the steam age industrial scenes, just to show there are more congenial and attractive aspects of industry that we can all appreciate. First we look at the windmills and watermills. In the early industrial period, before the Industrial Revolution driven by coal and steam, all industrial processes were powered by wind and water. Remains of watermills for bread and livestock meal date from the Roman occupation and wind milling of grain is recorded from the 12th century onward. From the 16th century to the 19th century wind and water power was also harnessed to drive cutters, grindstones, hammers, mixers, stamps and other machinery in the manufacture of brass, bricks, cement, fertilizer, ironwork, paint, pottery and bone china, ropes, snuff, tanning, textiles and tools for farming and engineering.

The famous B-52 Stratofortress has been in service with the USAF for more than 65 years and its iconic shape is known and recognized all over the world.

Supermarine Aviation built the Spitfire but it had previously made its name building a range of seaplanes and flying boats - particularly racers such as the S.6 (from which the Spitfire was developed). Historian Ralph Pegram, who has spent years researching the company and its aircraft, has unearthed dozens of previously unknown designs created by the company and in this bookazine illustrated with his own line drawings he explores the company''s top secret seaplane and floatplane designs - some straightforward, others bizarre-looking by today''s standards. Vol. 2 will look at fighters and bombers.

Do you struggle to fall asleep at night or always wake up feeling tired? This expert guide will help you improve your sleep, beat insomnia and feel your best again. One in three people now suffers from insomnia, and millions of us have disrupted sleep and daytime fatigue due to modern-day lifestyles. It's not just your mood and temper that can suffer - lack of sleep can lead to health problems and accelerated ageing. In this book, learn how to beat your sleep thieves and build a sleep-friendly lifestyle. Discover the foods and therapies that deepen your slumber and learn how to stop your partner keeping you awake at night. Follow the plan for 14 days and look forward to a happier, energised you.