Since its origins a century ago, aviation has reshaped the world. Without doubt in addition to the progress it has generated, the revolution in transport and communications it has triggered and the scientific discoveries it has prompted the airplane has above all transformed methods of combat and the structure and organization of armies, tactics and strategies, becoming a decisive element in victories and defeats. This volume recalls this long process, not just narrating the facts, challenges and adventures but also illustrating the growth of military aviation through dramatic pictures. The most prestigious aviation archives in museums and industries, in private collections and in military documentation centres have responded to requests for key photograph. Accurate colour plates of the most important aircraft complete the picture of each historical period, and an appendix gathers together the technical specifications in a series of tables showing the principal characteristics of each aircraft that has been discussed and depicted. This volume records the story of a hundred years of military aviation: story that commences with the faded photographs of pilots and machines of bygone days posing in front of the cameras, before continuing with the dramatic testimony of past wars and recent air combat, and ending with a glimpse of the future. This glimpse is visible in the fighter planes of today, which integrate within dazzling aerodynamic envelopes the world's most sophisticated technologies and weapons, capable of giving a single man the devastating power of entire armies of the past. Colour plates of the most important aircraft complete the picture of each historical period