“Individual women’s stories enliven almost every page” of this comprehensive illustrated reference, now updated, from the National Air and Space Museum (Technology and Culture). Women run wind tunnel experiments, direct air traffic, and fabricate airplanes. American women have been involved with flight from the beginning. But until 1940, most people believed women could not fly, that Amelia Earhart was an exception to the rule. World War II changed everything. “It is on the record that women can fly as well as men,” stated General Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces. Then the question became “Should women fly?” Deborah G. Douglas tells the story of this ongoing debate and its impact on American history. From Jackie Cochran, whose perseverance led to the formation of the Women’s Army Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II to the more recent achievements of Jeannie Flynn, the Air Force’s first woman fighter pilot and Eileen Collins, NASA’s first woman shuttle commander, Douglas introduces a host of determined women who overcame prejudice and became military fliers, airline pilots, and air and space engineers. Not forgotten are stories of flight attendants, air traffic controllers, and mechanics. American Women and Flight since 1940 is a revised and expanded edition of a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum reference work. Long considered the single best reference work in the field, this new edition contains extensive new illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography.

The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary is an authoritative and accessible reference useful to scholars and enthusiasts alike. This dictionary is an essential tool for people who must read and understand technical content regarding the aerospace industry and specific aircraft. The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary is also an ideal reference for the engineering and physics student encountering a subject replete with technical jargon and acronyms. The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary is based on three previous editions of the popular and definitive Janes Aerospace Dictionary by Bill Gunston, OBE, FRaes. For this new edition, Gunston, one of the most widely read and respected aviation writers of all time, added over 15,000 new terms, mostly acronyms, in this carefully updated volume. Terms used in the dictionary reflect the diverse and international nature of the aerospace industry. Also included are brief explanations of aerospace materials and organizations. Terms specific to manufacturers, airlines, and armed forces are avoided.

This exhaustive work in three volumes and over 1300 pages provides a thorough treatment of ultra-high temperature materials with melting points over 2500 °C. The first volume focuses on Carbon and Refractory Metals, whilst the second and third are dedicated solely to Refractory compounds and the third to Refractory Alloys and Composites respectively. Topics included are physical (crystallographic, thermodynamic, thermo physical, electrical, optical, physico-mechanical, nuclear) and chemical (solid-state diffusion, interaction with chemical elements and compounds, interaction with gases, vapours and aqueous solutions) properties of the individual physico-chemical phases of carbon (graphite/graphene), refractory metals (W, Re, Os, Ta, Mo, Nb, Ir) and compounds (oxides, nitrides, carbides, borides, silicides) with melting points in this range. It will be of interest to researchers, engineers, postgraduate, graduate and undergraduate students alike. The reader is provided with the full qualitative and quantitative assessment for the materials, which could be applied in various engineering devices and environmental conditions at ultra-high temperatures, on the basis of the latest updates in the field of physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering.

The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory was established in 1917 as the Nation's first civil aeronautics research laboratory under the charter of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). With a primary mission to identify and solve the problems of flight, the highly productive laboratory utilized an extensive array of wind tunnels, laboratory equipment, and flight research aircraft to conceive and mature new aeronautical concepts and provide databases and design methodology for critical technical disciplines in aircraft design. Prior to World War II (WWII), research at Langley on such diverse topics as airfoils, aircraft structures, engine cowlings and cooling, gust alleviation, and flying qualities was widely disseminated within the civil aviation community, and well-known applications of the technology to civil aircraft were commonplace. During WWII, however, the facilities and personnel of Langley were necessarily focused on support of the Nation's military efforts. Following WWII, aeronautical research at Langley was stimulated by the challenges of high speed flight and the associated problems that were exhibited by high-speed aircraft configurations operating at relatively low speeds, such as those used for takeoff and landing. Much of Langley's research during that time would ultimately be useful to both the civil and military aviation industries. With the emergence of the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, Langley retained its vital role in aeronautical research and assumed a leading position as NASA Langley Research Center, along with Ames Research Center, Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center), and Dryden Flight Research Center. Langley's legacy of critical contributions to the civil aviation industry includes a wide variety of activities ranging from fundamental physics to applied engineering disciplines. Through the mechanisms of NASA technical reports, technical symposia, meetings with industry, and cooperative projects, the staff of Langley Research Center has maintained an awareness of the unique problems and challenges facing the U.S. civil aviation industry. With a sensitivity toward these unique requirements, Langley researchers have conceived and conducted extremely relevant research that has been applied directly to civil aircraft. These applications have resulted in increased mission performance, enhanced safety, and improved competitiveness. This document is intended to be a companion to NASA SP-2000-4519, "Partners in Freedom: Contributions of the Langley Research Center to U.S. Military Aircraft of the 1990s." Material included in the combined set of volumes provides informative and significant examples of the impact of Langley's research on U.S. civil and military aircraft of the 1990s. As worldwide advances in aeronautics and aviation continue at a breathtaking pace, documenting the significant activities, individuals, and events that have shaped the destinies of U.S. civil and military aviation has become increasingly important. In the research and development communities, many instances have occurred where fundamental, groundbreaking efforts have been forgotten or confused because of turnover of staffs, loss of technical records, and lack of documentation. This volume, "Concept to Reality: Contributions of the NASA Langley Research Center to U.S. Civil Aircraft of the 1990s," highlights significant Langley contributions to safety, cruise performance, takeoff and landing capabilities, structural integrity, crashworthiness, flight deck technologies, pilot-vehicle interfaces, flight characteristics, stall and spin behavior, computational design methods, and other challenging technical areas for civil aviation.

This book examines the Reserve Officers Training Corps program as a distinctively American expression of the social, cultural, and political meanings of military service. Since 1950, ROTC has produced nearly two out of three American active duty officers, yet there has been no comprehensive scholarly look at civilian officer education programs in nearly forty years. While most modern military systems educate and train junior officers at insular academies like West Point, only the United States has relied heavily on the active cooperation of its civilian colleges. Michael Neiberg argues that the creation of officer education programs on civilian campuses emanates from a traditional American belief (which he traces to the colonial period) in the active participation of civilians in military affairs. Although this ideology changed shape through the twentieth century, it never disappeared. During the Cold War military buildup, ROTC came to fill two roles: it provided the military with large numbers of well-educated officers, and it provided the nation with a military comprised of citizen-soldiers. Even during the Vietnam era, officers, university administrators, and most students understood ROTC's dual role. The Vietnam War thus led to reform, not abandonment, of ROTC. Mining diverse sources, including military and university archives, Making Citizen-Soldiers provides an in-depth look at an important, but often overlooked, connection between the civilian and military spheres.

US Foreign Policy and the Modernization of Iran examines the evolution of US-Iranian relations during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. It demonstrates how successive administrations struggled to exert influence over the Shah of Iran's regime domestic and foreign policy.