Prices: Books

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  Evaluation of U.S. Air Force Preacquisition Technology Development

  From the days of biplanes and open cockpits, the air forces of the United States have relied on the mastery of technology. From design to operation, a project can stretch to 20 years and more, with continuous increases in cost. Much of the delay and cost growth afflicting modern United States Air Force (USAF) programs is rooted in the incorporation of advanced technology into major systems acquisition. Leaders in the Air Force responsible for science and technology and acquisition are trying to determine the optimal way to utilize existing policies, processes, and resources to properly document and execute pre-program of record technology development efforts, including opportunities to facilitate the rapid acquisition of revolutionary capabilities and the more deliberate acquisition of evolutionary capabilities. Evaluation of U.S. Air Force Preacquisition Technology Development responds to this need with an examination of the current state of Air Force technology development and the environment in which technology is acquired. The book considers best practices from both government and industry to distill appropriate recommendations that can be implemented within the USAF.

  $26.43

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  Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters (Specialty Press)

  The United States Air Force was late in developing a jet fighter, definitely behind Germany and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, a small number of Lockheed P-80 Shooting Stars did make it to the European and Mediterraneantheaters of operations before VE Day, although they did not see combat. After the war, the sheer size of the U.S. aviation industry guaranteed that American fighters would soon dominate the skies. However, the state of the art was advancing so fast that many development efforts never resulted in production aircraft; concepts that had seemed reasonable, even ideal, at the time were quickly overcome by newer and better technology. In the United States alone, several dozen different fighter designs made it to the prototype stage during the 1950s and 1960s. In this book, Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony R. Landis look at the variety of different jet-fighter concepts developed by the U.S. Air Force after World War II. These pages cover all experimental and prototype jet fighters that made it to the hardware stage design studies and paper airplanes are notdiscussed since other current books are dedicated to those subjects. The rationale for developing each aircraft is covered, along with a discussion of the technology needed to build it, its flight-test program, and the reasons it was cancelled or ordered into production. The text is derived mostly from official Air Force documents, and all of the aircraft are well covered photographically, usually with seldom-seen images showingthem as they appeared during their flight-test program.

  $31.30

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  The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force

  At the end of the Reagan era, many in the U.S. Air Force began to express their concerns about the health of their institution. They questioned whether the Air Force had lost its sense of direction, its confidence, its values, even its future. For some, these concerns reflected nothing more than the maturation of the most youthful of America's military institutions. For others it was a crisis of spirit that threatened the hard-won independence of the Air Force. Although the diagnoses for this malaise are as numerous as its symptoms, The Icarus Syndrome points a finger at the abandonment of air power theory sometime in the late 1950s to early 1960s as the single, taproot cause of the problems. That provocative diagnosis is followed by an equally provocative prescription the Air Force must follow to regain its institutional health. Author Carl H. Builder begins with an overview of this crisis of values within the Air Force, along with a litany of concerns about what seems to have gone wrong within that institution. The history of the U.S. Air Force, along with the role played in it by air power theory, is explored and is used to support Builder's thesis. The remainder of the book is an analysis of what went wrong and when, how these wrongs might be corrected, and the challenges for Air Force leadership in the future. Now available in paperback, The Icarus Syndrome will be of great interest to U.S. Air Force professionals, military and aviation historians, and institutional psychologists. "The juxtaposition of theory and the operational principles is superbly managed in the framework of the strategic questions about the future of air power. This book is strongly recommended for those who think or should think in terms of shaping air and space power for the future."--Harry H. Almond, Jr., The Friday Review of Defense Literature "The Icarus Syndrome is an intellectually engaging work and particularly timely. The author's conclusions are skillfully developed and clearly articulated."--Jeffrey C. Prater, Military Review Carl H. Builder was a senior staff member at RAND, and specialized in strategy formation and analysis. He is the author of The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis, and wrote extensively on nuclear issues, the military, institutional analysis, and technological and societal futures.

  $28.75