Affectionately named "battlebags" by their crews and "pigs" by the local civilian inhabitants, Royal Navy Air Service airships were a familiar sight around Britains's shores. At least 226 airships of all types were built and operated by the Royal Navy during the war in a bid to beat the deadly German U-boat menace. This book describes the development of the airship in the years leading up to World War I and the part it was destined to play in the years that followed. The background to each class is given together with details of individual airships, including where they were built and stationed, their crews and technical information.

The North Pole has long been a lure for adventures. It has drawn those looking for a northwest passage to rich Asian trade routes, and it has attracted those simply hunting fro fame and the glory of being the first to get there. By the end of the 19th century, hundreds had lost their lives pursuing the quest. Inspired in part by the fantasies of Jules Verne and others, the search had intensified to such a degree at the turn of the century that royalty, explorer clubs, and newspapers were funding expeditions. Newspapers in the United States and Europe could not get enough material to satisfy the hunger of their readers for more. This volume chronicles the adventures of Swedish engineer Salomon August Andree, who made the first failed attempt to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon in 1897, and of American journalist Walter Wellman, who organized and led three unsuccessful air expeditions from 1907 to 1909. The book investigates the stories behind the quests to reach this remote and inhospitable outpost by air and examines how those stories were created and reported by the press. P.J. Capelotti takes readers along of the archaeological remains of early polar aviators, the first such study by a professional archaeologist. He looks at the aviation science of these attempts, as well as the brilliance and folly of those who led them. What he uncovers allows readers to reflect on the distortions of the written historical record, particularly unkind to Wellman, and what that may tell us about our own age of exploration as we look to the last frontiers in space.

Reader's Review: A wealth of technical detail makes this book a must-read. Harold Dick was the American representative of the Goodyear-Zeppelin joint venture, and he lived and worked at Friedrichshafen and aboard the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. Dick was given full access to the operations of the German Zeppelin company, and he flew as a passenger and/or crew member on 22 transatlantic flights aboard the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. His observations about the German passenger zeppelins are fascinating, and he provides a rare personal insight, from an American perspective, on airship captains Hugo Eckener, Ernst Lehmann, and Max Pruss. Dick also provides a wealth of technical details on zeppelin construction and operation which are not available anywhere else. While not written with the eloquence or grace of a professional author, the detail and commentary in Dick's book make it a must-read for any serious student of zeppelin history.

Describes the round-the-world flight of the Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon that took off from Switzerland and landed twenty days and 29,000 miles later in Egypt.

Reader's Review: Wonderful, real-life adventure that rivals Into Thin Air. I was drawn to this book after seeing a photograph taken from the gondola of a baloon that shows the curvature of the earth and for all practicle purposes was taken from space. A little research lead me to Mr. Ryan's book of high-altitude ballooning, which is just perfectly written, and which I found as exciting as any of the adventure/naturalism books that are all in vogue presently. Yet, Ryan shows that these adventures into the stratosphere were no mere acts of hubris, but a great and necasary step in the advancement of aeronautics. Filled with many interesting facts, I have to this day a much greater appreciation for the thin atmosphere that sorrounds our planet. And the step from the gondola that Kittinger takes from 105,000 feet still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. You think braving a storm in the North Atlantic is frightful or find traffic jams on the face of everest titilating, try this puppy on for size!

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