On the website of Fonthill Media we have found four interesting books historic about aviation.

Whirlwind - Westland's Enigmatic Fighter
Author: Niall Corduroy

Format:248 x 172 mm
Hardback
288 pages
50 mono illustrations

Faster and better armed than the Spitfire, the Whirlwind was the RAF’s counter to a new generation of armoured German bombers which it expected to meet in English skies in 1940. A few months after its first flight 1,000 Whirlwinds were ordered, but nine months later the RAF cancelled the entire programme. Just 114 were built, but they went on to have a distinguished three-year career from the uneasy months after the Battle of Britain to their final sorties against Hitler’s V-weapons sites in France.
Based on fresh research, this new and overdue study throws new light on why the RAF had such high hopes for the Whirlwind, but was still prepared to cancel it, its designer’s efforts to save the programme and, above all, the aircraft’s operational record. Attacking railways, shipping, torpedo boats and airfields, often against fierce opposition, the Whirlwind squadrons flew with determination and style and saw themselves as a privileged elite within Fighter Command – the ‘fewest of the few’.


A Flying Life. An Enthusiast’s Photographic Record of British Aviation in the 1930s.
Author: Richard Riding

Format: 248 x 172 mm
Hardback
256 pages
300 black and white photographs

A Flying Life: An Enthusiast’s Photographic Record of British Aviation in the 1930s consists of photographs that were taken by E. J. Riding, the author’s father, who spent his working life in the aviation industry. He was apprenticed to A. V. Roe & Company and employed as an aircraft engineer up to the war. During the war, Riding became an AID inspector and was seconded to Fairey Aviation, London Aircraft Production and the de Havilland Aircraft Company, latterly signing out Halifax bombers and Mosquitoes as airworthy and ready for test flying. Sadly, Riding was killed in a flying accident in 1950.
During his short life, he gained a lasting reputation as an engineer, professional photographer, draughtsman and aero modeller. Riding began taking photographs of aircraft in 1931, aged fifteen. Fortunately, he kept copious notes recording the locations and dates of when and where aircraft were photographed. More importantly, he noted aircraft colour schemes, details rarely recorded by the press at the time. The aircraft types photographed by Riding ranged from the Tiger Moth, RAF fighters, ultra-lights to airliners, the whole giving a good cross-section of flying in Britain up to the outbreak of the Second World War.
The book’s photographs are of excellent quality and do not all consist of sterile bog-standard side views. Many depict aircraft being stripped for maintenance and servicing, others show aircraft dumped or after having crashed. Although approached in a generally light-hearted manner, the book features in-depth and informative captions.

Küstenflieger - The Operational History of the German Naval Air Service 1935-1944.
Author: Adam Thompson

Format: 234 x 156 mm
Hardback
160 pages
80 black and white photographs

Küstenflieger: The Operational History of the German Naval Air Service 1935-1944 is a work that covers the history of the German naval air arm between the two World Wars as well as unit histories for the major Küstenfliegergruppen during the Second World War. The impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the build-up of German forces in the interwar period and the influence of Hermann Göring greatly influenced the design, capability and size of the Küstenfliegergruppen. While Germany operated seaplanes throughout the war, the Kriegsmarine’s naval air arm was constantly under threat from the Luftwaffe.
In 1944, the last Küsenfliegerstaffeln was disbanded in favour of the Luftwaffe’s own naval air units. Covering operational histories, the title also looks at the involvement of various Sonderkommandos during the war, but also in the Spanish Civil War. The title also covers the camouflage and marking systems of the Küstenfliegergruppen prior to and during the Second World War. tried to blow him up with RPGs.
Küstenflieger: The Operational History of the German Naval Air Service 1935-1944 is a must for military historians, modellers and those fascinated in the Second World War on an more obscure but heavily engaged Luftwaffe unit. Also, the book contains many unpublished photographs and memoirs making it highly collectable.

Mount of Aces: The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a

Author: Paul R. Hare
Format: 234 x 156 mm
Hardback
160 pages
120 b/w photographs

From the author of Fonthill Media’s Fokker Fodder: The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c, Mount of Aces: The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a is a fitting testament to a legendary fighter. Arguably, the Sopwith Camel may be the best known British fighter plane of the First World War that took on the mighty and feared Jastas over the killing fields that were the trenches. However, almost all the highest scoring aces including McCudden and Mannock preferred the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a.
It was well-armed, fast, highly manoeuvrable and a superb gun platform, and yet it was easy and safe for even the most sketchily trained pilot to fly. The S.E.5a was deadly. Not only could it absorb punishment and turn on a penny, it packed a wallop with its .303 Vickers and .303 Lewis machine guns. Over 5,500 examples were produced in the war and Major Edward C. ‘Mick’ Mannock scored fifty of his seventy-three victories in the S.E.5a.
The S.E.5a helped turn the tide of war in the Allies’ favour. After the war, examples took part in air races and were employed in the ‘sky-writings’ industry for advertising purposes in both Britain and America. And today, all over the world, home-builders are producing reproductions of the S.E.5a for sport and leisure flying, a fitting tribute to a design now nearly a century old and an appropriate memorial to the thousands of pilots who flew it in combat in defence of their country.


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