Fighting Jets

Fighting Jets is a Time-Life aviation book included in the Epic of Flight series. On August 27, 1939, just four days before the outbreak of WWII, a slender unconventional research airplane designated Heinkel 178, took off from Marienhe Airfield in Germany to make the first successful flight of a turbojet aircraft. The first fighting jets had little effect initially; their appearance set the stage for future generations of jet warplanes. Great Britain, the United States and Japan all developed and flew jet aircraft before the World War II ended.