Michael W. Hankins

Michael W. Hankins

Dr. Michael W. Hankins is the Curator for US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. 


Mike is the author of Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia, from Cornell University Press, available now in print and audiobook!


“In this lively, absorbing account, Hankins demonstrates the influence of a specific culture that celebrated the fighter pilot as a “knight of the air” who thrilled to aerial combat.”

-Lawrence Freedman, Foreign Affairs

“Forget ‘The Right Stuff,’ this is the Real Stuff. Equal parts cultural, technological, societal, and military history, Flying Camelot is a brilliant and illuminating account of fighter pilot culture and the development of governmental weapons systems.”

-Brian Laslie, NORAD and USNORTHCOM,
author of Air Power’s Lost Cause

“[Dr. Hankins] writes in an engaging and accessible way that makes some occasionally highly-technical discussions quite lucid and illuminating.”

-Sir Richard Williams Foundation





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