Last month I had the great honor of interviewing Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt at the National Air and Space Museum. You can watch the full program here: Leavitt was the first woman to become a combat fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force and primarily flew the F-15E Strike Eagle. She has over 300 hours…

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I’m extremely excited and very honored to say that my book, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia, has been selected as the winner of the 2025 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award! This honor is awarded “for the best original contribution to…

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The latest episode of the From Balloons to Drones podcast is up today, and it’s our 50th episode! Join us for a look back at previous shows and a good discussion about the role of historians and the state of the field of airpower history. You can listen to the show on Soundcloud, Spotify, or…

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The latest episode of the “From Balloons to Drones” podcast is out now! This time we interview esteemed aviation historian Kenneth P. Werrell. Werrell takes us through his latest book, Air Force Disappointments, Mistakes, and Failures, to tell us about aircraft designs that never took off. From those that were cancelled before going into production,…

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Last night I was very lucky to be able to host a great event: “The Path to Equality for Women Military Aviators,” featuring two great authors who have new books on the history of women in military aviation. The guests were Eileen Bjorkman, a retired Air Force Colonel and flight test engineer, whose latest book…

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We’re back, baby! After taking a hiatus over the summer, the From Balloons to Drones podcast is back, and we kick things off with a great interview with U.S. Navy Commander Stan Fisher, author of Sustaining the Carrier War. So many books talk about the battles, or give a pilot’s perspective, but in this episode,…

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For the Spring 2024 issue of Air and Space Quarterly, I was asked to write about one of my favorite artifacts in the National Air and Space Museum. It was not a difficult choice. Check out the article online here, or in the print edition, for a rundown on the history of the Museum’s Blackbird.

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Last fall I was very honored to be invited to speak at the National World War I Museum and Memorial’s annual symposium, where I gave a talk called “Myth and Memory of the Lafayette Escadrille.” This was a dedicated squadron of American volunteer fighter pilots that flew with the French in World War I, before…

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Don’t miss the latest episode of the From Balloons to Drones podcast! We’re joined by Dr. Luke Truxal to talk about bombing in WW2 — specifically, who was in command, and how did the relationships between different commanders affect the campaigns? This is a great episode you won’t want to miss! You can listen on…

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I’m very excited about a new article I wrote that was just published in the new issue of Air and Space Quarterly, the member magazine of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It reveals the names of the first American women to officially fly combat missions. U.S. Navy Lieutenant Kimberly “Face” Dyson was the…

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