Written by a retired Fleet Air Arm pilot in the Royal Navy and an award-winning historian of naval flying, this book provides a masterly overview of the history of aviation in the world s navies down to the present day. Heavily illustrated from the author's comprehensive collection of photographs, the book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in navies or air power. The author traces the progress and growing effectiveness of naval air power, concentrating on the advances and inventions that allowed shipborne aircraft to match their land-based counterparts and looking at their contributions to twentieth-century warfare.

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Seaforth Publishing.

Beginnings -- A purpose-built ship and numerous conversions -- Take-off decks -- Take-off platforms, catapults and lighters -- HMS Furious -- HMS Argus -- USS Langley -- Progress -- Different navies, different techniques -- Flight from ships other than carriers -- HMS Implacable described and compared -- Flying from a straight-deck carrier -- Design innovation and the 'rubber deck' -- Transformation -- Flying from an angled-deck carrier -- Helicopters -- Short take-off, vertical landing -- What might have been -- Cross-deck operations -- Postscript.