{"title":"Books by Dan Sharp","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781911704294","title":"HOTOL: Britain's Spaceplane","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe start of Space Shuttle operations in 1981 marked a new era in spaceflight – with the five orbiters launching numerous satellites, interplanetary probes and the Hubble Space Telescope. But Shuttle was only partially reusable, its external fuel tank being expendable and its solid rocket boosters having to be recovered from the ocean and refurbished. Putting a satellite into orbit using a rocket was even more wasteful – with boosters such as Ariane being one-shot only. The costs were literally astronomical.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo when rocket scientist Alan Bond met propulsion and systems specialist Bob Parkinson at the British Interplanetary Society in 1982 during a lecture on Ariane 5, they got to talking about alternatives to the expendable rocket and concluded that the solution was… an aerospaceplane. The concept was deceptively simple – a vehicle able to take off from a conventional runway, fly up into space, complete its mission, then fly back down and land. Bond and Parkinson believed it could be done and HOTOL – HOrizontal Take-Off and Landing – was born. By 1985 both British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce were backing the project. A television news broadcast in 1987 made HOTOL famous overnight, with the whole nation now aware of its existence. The Government agreed to provide yet more financial backing and the work ramped up into high gear, with some of Britain’s best engineers engaged in making this remarkable vehicle a reality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJust a year later, Minister of State of Trade and Industry Kenneth Clarke, under pressure from Margaret Thatcher, withdrew funding – signalling the beginning of the end of HOTOL. Decades later, Elon Musk and SpaceX would finally corner the market in reusable space transportation with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, putting an end to any hope of a HOTOL revival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHOTOL: Spaceplane of the Future by Dan Sharp covers the full story of HOTOL’s development in detail from beginning to end drawing on both the BAE Systems archive and the personal archives of the project’s creators. It includes hundreds of previously unseen diagrams and illustrations, ranging from full colour brochures and publicity material – both used and unused – to schematics of all of HOTOL’s numerous configurations.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44582795903154,"sku":"9781911704294","price":40.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911704294.jpg?v=1786030307"},{"product_id":"9781911703426","title":"D Day Overlord","description":"Updated to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, D-Day: Operation Overlord and the Battle for Normandy, tells the full story of the invasion, with detailed accounts of each of the five landing zones on June 6, 1944, the airborne assault and the Normandy campaign that followed. It was the most ambitious military operation in history – the invasion of Nazi-occupied France by sea. A fleet larger than any ever seen before was assembled and launched under conditions of utmost secrecy to catch the defenders of Adolf Hitler’s formidable Atlantic Wall by surprise.At H-Hour on D-Day, British, American and Canadian soldiers landed on beaches whose codenames have since become a byword for heroism – Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah. Men waded ashore into a hail of machine gun fire and fought their way through a tangle of concrete bunkers and armoured emplacements. More ferocious combat followed as fanatical Waffen-SS divisions armed with terrifying new weapons such as the King Tiger tank battled to the death to contain the Allied advance.D-Day: Operation Overlord and the Battle for Normandy tells the story of the most important battle of the Second World War and remembers the men whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice brought about the liberation of Europe and put an end to Hitler’s tyranny.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308544766325,"sku":"9781911703426","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911703426_0df8451f-dabc-49c8-9865-68eec754c858.jpg?v=1786030291"},{"product_id":"9781911703280","title":"Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe Vol7","description":"Hundreds of thousands of classified documents were captured from Germany’s aircraft manufacturers and aviation ministry at the end of the Second World War, including details of ‘secret project’ aircraft designs created by firms such as Focke-Wulf, Messerschmitt, Heinkel, Dornier and Blohm \u0026amp; Voss.  Ongoing new research in archives around the world has revealed many previously unknown plans and proposals for aircraft that were radical, revolutionary or just plain weird.  In this latest volume in his series on German wartime aircraft development, author Dan Sharp reveals a wealth of new discoveries – including never-before-seen drawings and designs. Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe examines Focke-Wulf’s designs for enormous fighters built around bomber engines, aviation minister Erhard Milch’s unusual rival to the Heinkel He 219 night fighter and Messerschmitt’s alternative version of the push-pull twin engine Dornier Do 335. Also revealed are the long-buried secret history of the Blohm \u0026amp; Voss BV 40’s repurposing as a suicide bomber, how an American-born car designer came up with the idea for Focke-Wulf’s Ta 154 night fighter and the competition that would see Focke-Wulf, Dornier and Blohm \u0026amp; Voss go head-to-head with plans to design the Luftwaffe’s last all-new piston engine fighter in 1944-45. Hundreds of original and previously unseen documents have been used to compile this unrivalled look at some of Germany’s least-known Second World War project designs, featuring a host of period drawings and illustrations.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308544799093,"sku":"9781911703280","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911703280_d9bc257a-d0dd-4eb5-93a2-210977353b58.jpg?v=1786030289"},{"product_id":"9781911658047","title":"Spitfires Over Berlin","description":"As British and American forces closed in from the west, the Russians pushed in hard from the east, and the RAF and USAAF bombed Germany every night and day, the beleaguered Luftwaffe went all-out in a last effort to defend the Fatherland during the last months of the Second World War.Spitfires Over Berlin tells the story of the desperate battles that took place over the Western Front from January 1 to May 8, 1945.True stories of aerial combat, courage and daring from all sides of the conflict illustrate the dramatic tale of the war’s closing chapter - from the battle between the Spitfire XIV pilots of 350 Squadron and Fw 190s over the western fringes of Berlin to the murder of a downed P-51 Mustang pilot by civilians and carefully planned ramming attacks on American bombers.Also featured are the ‘dogfight’ between a Piper L-4H Grasshopper and a Fieseler Storch, what led a disgraced Luftwaffe pilot to fly the lethal BP 20 Natter rocket-powered interceptor, the French aces who flew for the Soviets, the fate of the US pilots who shot down a flight of Mistel combinations and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308945617269,"sku":"9781911658047","price":24.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658047_62890348-c2b0-481e-9ab8-7d5eb0e071d0.jpg?v=1786029841"},{"product_id":"9781911703464","title":"Modern Aerobatic Teams","description":"Air forces all over the world showcase the talents of their aviators and regularly thrill audiences with aerobatic and formation flying performances. Air display teams, with their trails of coloured smoke, strikingly decorated aircraft and the incredibly skilful flying of their elite pilots are hugely popular with air show crowds and act as international ambassadors. Modern Aerobatic Teams features 150 profile artworks of display team aircraft, past and present, by renowned aviation artist JP Vieira – including, from Britain, the Red Arrows’ Hawk, Tigers’ Lightning, Red Pelicans’ Jet Provost and Black Arrows’ Hunter, as well as, from the US, the Thunderbirds’ F-84G, F-100, F-4, T-38 and F-16, the Blue Angels’ F9F, Cutlass and F\/A-18, the Sabre Dancers’ F-86, the Minute Men’s F-80, F-86 and F-16 and more. Also included are the Belgian Red Devils’ SF260, Patrouille de France Ouragan, Mystere, Magister and Alfa-Jet, Italy’s Frecce Tricolori F-86 and MB-339, Ukrainian Falcons MiG-29, Russian Knights Su-30, Patrouille Suisse F-5E, EMB-314 from Brazil’s Smoke Squadron, 300L from Chile’s Halcones, K-8E from Egypt’s Silver Stars, J-10 from China’s August 1st Aerobatic Team and many more from around the world.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308961870197,"sku":"9781911703464","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911703464_c6882fd9-4920-4282-8875-3c2ed9eb7939.jpg?v=1786030292"},{"product_id":"9781911658054","title":"Eagles of the Luftwaffe: Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A, F and G","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen it appeared in the skies over Europe in 1941, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A was the best fighter in the world. It was more than a match for the best Spitfires the RAF could field and began shooting them down in ever-increasing numbers. Only the introduction of the Spitfire IX with its two-stage supercharged Merlin overturned its supremacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlongside the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 is the iconic fighter of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. It was hugely adaptable and fought on nearly all fronts, proving to be a formidable opponent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Fw 190 F and G fighter-bombers effectively replaced the Ju 87 Stuka in the ground-attack role in the west and provided the Luftwaffe with much-needed additional capability. The Fw 190 was used for the Mistel flying bomb combination and as a test aircraft for the Ruhrstahl X-4 wire-guided air-to-air missile, and in its Fw 190 A-8 and A-9 forms fought on the front line right until the bitter end.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book tells the story of the legendary fighter with previously unseen drawings and photos which shed new light on the aircraft’s origins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309080785269,"sku":"9781911658054","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658054_b15a5a22-c570-4e7f-9901-e69b05d1d91d.jpg?v=1786029841"},{"product_id":"9781911658245","title":"Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe:","description":"Heinkel’s single-jet He 162 fighter arrived in Luftwaffe service at the very end of the Second World War - but its development can be traced back to the beginning of July 1944. A contest had been set in motion to design a powerful and aerodynamically advanced replacement for Messerschmitt’s twin-jet Me 262 and Heinkel believed it could win.As the competition progressed and Germany’s resources dwindled, it became clear that an advanced jet fighter was not what the Luftwaffe needed. A new concept was formulated: a cheap, basic fighter equipped with a single readily-available turbojet. The advanced fighter contest was temporarily shelved and Volksjäger was born.Swept metal wings, V-tail and HeS 011 engine swapped for straight wooden wings, conventional tail and BMW 003 engine, Heinkel’s fighter design was rushed through a brief selection process before Adolf Hitler himself placed an order for 1,000 a month. A massive effort saw the He 162 go from blueprints to flying prototype in less than two months. But was it a triumph of engineering prowess or a costly white elephant which hastened the end of the war? Using contemporary documents, author Dan Sharp explains and explores the development history of this fascinating and controversial late-war ‘secret project’.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309080981877,"sku":"9781911658245","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658245_cc4b3e98-d15a-4c76-9edc-74167812fe22.jpg?v=1786029845"},{"product_id":"9781911658030","title":"Cold War Interceptor","description":"The West was stunned when the Soviet Union dropped its first atomic bomb in August 1949 and a year later the Korean War showcased Russia’s incredible technological progress in the form of the MiG-15 - a fighter capable of besting anything the RAF had to offer at that time. In the wake of the Second World War, funding for the RAF’s Fighter Command had fallen away dramatically but now there was an urgent need for new jet fighters to meet the threat of Russian bombers head-on. Britain’s top aircraft manufacturers, including Hawker, English Electric, Fairey, Vickers Supermarine, De Havilland, Armstrong Whitworth and Saunders-Roe, set to work on designing powerful supersonic aircraft with all-new guided missile systems capable of meeting a Soviet assault and shooting down high-flying enemy aircraft before they could unleash a devastating nuclear firestorm on British soil.The result was some of the largest, heaviest and most powerful fighter designs the world had ever seen - and a heated debate about whether the behemoths should be built at all as guided weapons became ever more advanced. This is the story of Britain’s secret cold war fighter jet designs, fully illustrated with a host of drawings, illustrations and photographs.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309149663605,"sku":"9781911658030","price":27.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658030_f6b37b19-de29-465b-8216-cd4d1de50b9e.jpg?v=1786029839"},{"product_id":"9781911658320","title":"Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe:","description":"Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe Close Up: Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe Close Up offers an unparalleled and authoritative look at the most unusual and important ‘secret projects’ aircraft designed and developed in Germany during the Second World War. Detailed development histories show exactly why these designs were created and how they related to the successes and failures of Germany’s wartime aircraft manufacturing programme. Each volume uses the latest archival research and features rare photographs and drawings alongside new artwork.The story of the Messerschmitt Me 109’s ultimate development, the Blohm \u0026amp; Voss BV 155, begins in 1942 with plans to split the Me 109 family into three branches - a standard fighter, a high-altitude fighter and a carrier-based fighter. Initially these were known as the Me 409 but later became the Me 155 A, B and C. The project was given to the French to develop, where it stalled. But when Germany got its first taste of what the USAAF’s bomber force was capable of - suffering huge damage to its war-critical industries as a result of massed raids on its factories and cities - work on the Me 155 B was recommenced as a matter of urgency. With the Me 262 consuming most of Messerschmitt’s design capacity, the project was then passed on to a sub-contractor: Blohm \u0026amp; Voss. Richard Vogt, B\u0026amp;V’s chief designer, quickly realised that Messerschmitt had made very little progress on the design and was forced to begin again almost from scratch. In just over a year, a prototype was built and flown - but the war ended before production could begin.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309150220661,"sku":"9781911658320","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658320_c30ee7f2-782d-4fc3-90f7-85ba8935e3a9.jpg?v=1786029849"},{"product_id":"9781911658085","title":"Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe - Vol 1 - Jet Fighters 1939 -1945","description":"\u003cp\u003eGermany’s air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilise this new form of propulsion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them. As the Second World War began, the urgent need to bring these advanced new types into production saw a host of innovative aircraft designs being produced which would eventually result in Messerschmitt’s Me 262 jet fighter and the Me 163 rocket-propelled interceptor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd as the war progressed, efforts were increasingly made to find better ways of utilising jet, rocket and latterly ramjet engines in fighter aircraft. Aviation companies from across Germany set their finest minds to the task and produced some of the most radical aircraft designs the world had ever seen. They proposed rotating wing ramjet fighters, arrowhead-shaped rammers, rocket-firing bat-winged gun platforms, sleek speed machines, tailless flying wings, tiny mini fighters and a host of others ranging from deadly-looking advanced fighters to downright dangerous vertical launch interceptors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecret Projects of the Luftwaffe Volume 1: Jet Fighters 1939-1945 by Dan Sharp, based on original research using German wartime documents, offers the most complete and authoritative account yet of these fascinating designs through previously unseen photographs, illustrations and period documentation from archives around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309150351733,"sku":"9781911658085","price":27.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658085_bb66bf25-ee33-4ce5-88e9-a7ab762f3701.jpg?v=1786034478"},{"product_id":"9781911658962","title":"Messerschmitt Me 309 Development \u0026 Politics","description":"\u003cp\u003eChosen in 1941 to replace the Bf 109 as the Luftwaffe’s standard front-line fighter, Messerschmitt’s innovative Me 309 embodied a wealth of hard-won experience from the Battle of Britain. Its sturdy tricycle undercarriage would make landings safer, its capacious wings could accommodate much heavier weaponry, its retractable radiator would make it aerodynamically clean, its pressure cabin would allow high-altitude operations and its ejection seat would help preserve the Luftwaffe’s most precious asset – its pilots. All of this was made possible by a fuselage specifically tailored to accommodate Germany’s newest and most powerful fighter engines: Daimler-Benz’s DB 603 and Junkers’ Jumo 213. Production of up to 800 Me 309s a month had been planned by May 1942 – more than all other German fighter types combined. Yet the type’s advancement from prototype to full series production was reduced to a crawl, not by technical difficulties but by political in-fighting, deception and manipulation behind closed doors. The Me 309 was set up to fail – doomed to join a lost generation of mid-war Luftwaffe combat aircraft alongside types such as Focke-Wulf’s Fw 190 C and Junkers’ Ju 288 – but why and by whom?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMesserschmitt Me 309 Development \u0026amp; Politics, the first book ever written solely about this aircraft, sets out its full history – from its forerunners and commissioning to its eventual cancellation and sale to the Japanese military. Using contemporary documents, authors Dan Sharp and Calum E. Douglas explain and explore the development and eventual failure of this fascinating ‘secret project’.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309251637621,"sku":"9781911658962","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911658962_949c2a09-d6cf-4875-9fdb-f3fa51c8bbbf.jpg?v=1787039975"},{"product_id":"9781911704201","title":"Messerschmitt Me 328 Development \u0026 Politics","description":"There was huge excitement when Argus engineer Günther Diedrich succeeded in building a pulsejet powerful enough to propel a car up to 100km\/h in 1941 – it was simple, cheap and lightweight, and before long Germany’s premier fighter manufacturer Messerschmitt had come up with a simple, cheap and lightweight airframe on which to mount it – the Me 328.The new aircraft was first pitched as an interceptor, then as a parasite bomber for attacks on America, then as an airborne version of the infamous Soviet Katyusha rocket launcher, to fire heavyweight rocket-bombs at Allied shipping. Prototypes were built and flown both as gliders and under pulsejet power, and when Nazi fanatics needed an aircraft suitable for suicide attacks against high-value Allied targets, their first choice was the Me 328. Yet the type never fulfilled the grandiose ambitions of those who designed, built and supported it.Dan Sharp unravels a development history that was anything but straightforward to find out exactly what happened to the Luftwaffe’s most enigmatic ‘secret project’ aircraft. Messerschmitt Me 328 Development \u0026amp; Politics is based on extensive archival research of contemporary German documents and includes numerous previously unpublished period drawings as well as 50 new full colour profile artworks.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309259862389,"sku":"9781911704201","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781911704201_3bed8e78-23e0-4759-9bcc-831e201e9eb9.jpg?v=1786030304"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-dan-sharp.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}