From Balloons to Drones

Join us as we look at what literary treasures await us in upcoming books in aerospace defense history. What are we excited about, what have we been reading? What have you been reading, and what are you excited for? Let us know! Also covered: Star Wars, Antz vs. A Bug's Life

We look back at 50 episodes of the "From Balloons to Drones" podcast, revisit our favorites, and look at where we're heading in the future!

For every military aircraft that takes to the skies, there are so many others that never got off the drawing board, or never made it into full production. Renowned and prolific aviation historian Kenneth P. Werrell talks us through his new book, Air Force Disappointments, Mistakes, and Failures, to talk about some of these projects and why some airplanes never seem to take off.

The Pacific Theater of WW2 was massive, not only in size, but in the huge numbers of ships and airplanes. Keeping a force like that operational and effective takes a huge amount of work behind the scenes. In this episode, Navy Commander Stan Fisher takes us through his new book, Sustaining the Carrier War, to show the often overlooked people behind the scenes: the mechanics and maintainers who kept the planes working and kept the carriers able to keep air power in the air in the war against Japan.

Today we put our own co-host Brian Laslie, in the hot seat to talk about his newest book: Fighting from Above: A Combat History of the US Air Force, from University of Oklahoma Press. He discusses the earliest days of American air power up through the present and looking into the future.