Aircraft of the Royal Navy Since 1908

David Hobbs served in the Royal Navy as a pilot, and later became the Curator of the Fleet Air Arm Museum. He has since established himself as an authoritative writer on naval aviation topics, with more than a dozen highly regarded books to his name. Of particular note is his series of Fleet Air Arm operational narratives covering the complete history of the service, in order of chronology from The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War to The British Carrier Strike Fleet after 1945, all published since 2011. His latest work, The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe 1939-1945, has received particular critical acclaim.

This is a comprehensive study of every aircraft type ordered for the Royal Navy since 1908. It includes fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, rigid and non-rigid airships, unmanned aircraft and pilotless target aircraft together with many designs that were ordered but not built so that the importance placed on them by the Naval Staff or their potential technological impact on carrier design and operations can be explained. Every type - even unsuccessful single prototypes - is described; the majority are illustrated by photographs, many of which come from the author's own collection, and the fifty most significant aircraft have detailed drawings. The Australian and Canadian Fleet Air Arms operated RN aircraft types for many years after their formation and these are included together with other types they have operated subsequently to give a more complete overview. The book describes over 400 different types of aircraft built by over 100 different manufacturers to offer the most detailed coverage of RN aircraft ever produced.