Category: Podcasts

#Podcast – The Drone Age: An Interview with Dr Michael Boyle

#Podcast – The Drone Age: An Interview with Dr Michael Boyle

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or more commonly, Drones, have become increasingly key to contemporary warfare, even iconic. But are they really as revolutionary as they appear? Dr Michael Boyle joins us to discuss his recent book, The Drone Age: How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace. He examines the drone phenomenon as it has currently affected global conflict, and how drones might shape the future.

51PMGO4y82L._AC_SY1000_

Dr Michael J. Boyle is an Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at La Salle University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia. His previous books include Violence after War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict States, Legal and Ethical Implications of Drone Warfare, and Non-Western Responses to Terrorism.

Header image: A USAF MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft flies above the smoky San Gabriel Mountains of southern California on its way to a fire mission in the northern part of the state, August 2020. (Source: US Department of Defense)

#Podcast – The US War Against ISIS: An Interview with Dr Aaron Stein

#Podcast – The US War Against ISIS: An Interview with Dr Aaron Stein

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

The war in Syria from 2011 onwards has featured heavy reliance on air power, not just by the US and its allies but also by the Russian Air Force. In this exciting episode, Dr Aaron Stein discusses his new book, The US War Against ISIS, which details how air power played a crucial role in the conflict against terrorist groups in Syria. He also reveals the fascinating and almost unbelievable engagements between US and Russian aircraft in this complex conflict.

9780755634811

Dr Aaron Stein is Director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia in the US. He is the author of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy: Davutoglu, the AKP and the Pursuit of Regional Order and has published in the peer-reviewed journals Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Insight Turkey, and The Journal of Strategic Security.

Header image: An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter from HSC 15 flies as the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) conducts flight operations in the US 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting Operation INHERENT RESOLVE.

#Podcast – Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942–1943: An Interview with Dr Frank Blazich

#Podcast – Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942–1943: An Interview with Dr Frank Blazich

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

During the Second World War, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) conducted anti-submarine operations, including giving civilian volunteer pilots the authority to drop bombs on enemy targets. To tell us about the role CAP played in the war, we’re joined by Dr Frank A. Blazich, Curator of Modern Military History at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and author of “An Honorable Place in American Air Power”: Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942–1943 from Air University Press. A review of “An Honorable Place can be found here.

201208-F-QR584-001

Dr Frank A. Blazich, Jr. is a Curator of Modern Military History for the Division of Armed Forces History at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he holds a doctorate in modern American history from The Ohio State University and specialises in the American military experience in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Following his doctoral studies, Blazich served as the historian at the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, California before moving to Washington, DC to serve as a historian in the History and Archives Division of Naval History and Heritage Command.  Additionally, he served as the national historian for the Civil Air Patrol from April 2013 to March 2018. In March 2018, he became director of the Colonel Louisa S. Morse Center for Civil Air Patrol History at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, DC. In addition to articles, book review and various blog posts, his first edited book, Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II, was published by the University of Missouri Press in February 2017.

Header Image: A variety of Civil Air Patrol-operated aircraft, including a Sikorsky S-39 in center frame, parked at Coastal Patrol Base 17  between July 1942 and August 1943. The base would eventually become Francis S. Gabreski Airport in New York State. (Source: Wikimedia)  

#Podcast – The American Air Wars of Vietnam: An Interview with Dr Brian Laslie

#Podcast – The American Air Wars of Vietnam: An Interview with Dr Brian Laslie

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

2022 will mark the 50th anniversary of the LINEBACKER campaigns – the last major bombing campaigns of the Vietnam War. As such, in our latest podcast, we interview Dr Brian Laslie about his latest book, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam and his evaluation of the legacy of air power’s contribution to the Vietnam War.

55870471

Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and currently the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). He is also the Book Reviews Editor at From Balloons to Drones. A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Header Image: 3/4 front view of a US Air Force RC-130A of the 1st Aerial Cartographic and Geodetic Squadron parked on aluminium matting at Tuy Hoa Airbase in South Vietnam in 1970. (Source: NARA)

#Podcast – The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II: An Interview with Daniel Jackson

#Podcast – The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II: An Interview with Daniel Jackson

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In our latest podcast, we interview Daniel Jackson about his latest book Fallen Tigers: The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II (2021). In this episode, Jackson discusses those American airmen who flew key missions in the China, Burma, India theatre during the Second World War. While discussing the exciting stories of these airmen and the various people who helped them on the ground, we reveal why a vastly higher percentage of them were able to survive and return home after being shot down, compared to other theatres. 

fallen-tigers

Daniel Jackson is an active duty pilot in the United States Air Force. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 2009 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Military History and a minor in Chinese Language. He earned his wings at Sheppard Air Force Base in February 2011 and completed a Master’s Degree in History from Sam Houston State University in 2017. He is the author of three books, including Fallen Tigers: The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II (2021). You can also see more of his work, including a database of downed air crews, oral histories, and more, at: www.forgottensquadron.com/

Header image: Hell’s Angels, the 3rd Squadron of the 1st American Volunteer Group “Flying Tigers” (Source: Wikimedia)

#Podcast – Mercury Rising: An Interview with Jeff Shesol

#Podcast – Mercury Rising: An Interview with Jeff Shesol

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In the latest entry in our podcast series, we interview prolific and celebrated author Jeff Shesol about his latest book Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War. In this episode Shesol talks about John Glenn, who captured the hearts and imagination of many Americans as the first US astronaut to orbit the earth. We not only talk about Glenn’s place in the history of the Cold War, but also in deeply personal terms.

mercury-rising

Jeff Shesol is the author of Mercury Rising, most recently, as well as Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court and Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade, both selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He is a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and is a founding partner of West Wing Writers. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds degrees in history from Oxford University and Brown University and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The New Yorker News Desk.

Header image: The Mercury Seven astronauts with a NASA Langley Research Center Convair F-106B Delta Dart aircraft at Langley Air Force Base, 20 January 1961. From left to right: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. (Source: Wikimedia)

#Podcast – The Bomber Mafia: An Interview with Dr Micheal Hankins, Dr Brian Laslie, and Dr Luxe Truxal

#Podcast – The Bomber Mafia: An Interview with Dr Micheal Hankins, Dr Brian Laslie, and Dr Luxe Truxal

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

The recent publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia has generated much interest in the topic of strategic bombing during the Second World War. In our latest podcast episode, three of the editors at From Balloons to Drones, Dr Mike Hankins, Dr Brian Laslie, and Dr Luke Truxal, discuss the book and go beyond it to talk about various issues related to bombing during the Second World War.

Dr Michael Hankins is the Curator of US Air Force History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He is a former Professor of Strategy at the USAF Air Command and Staff College eSchool, and former Instructor of Military History at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He earned his PhD from Kansas State University in 2018 with his dissertation, ‘The Cult of the Lightweight Fighter: Culture and Technology in the U.S. Air Force, 1964-1991.’ He completed his master’s thesis at the University of North Texas in 2013, titled ‘The Phantom Menace: The F-4 in Air-to-Air Combat in the Vietnam War.’ He has a web page here and can be found on Twitter at @hankinstien.

Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and currently the Command Historian at the USAF Academy. A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of three books with his most recent being Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (2021). His first book, The Air Force Way of War (2015) was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Dr Luke Truxal is an adjunct at Columbia State Community College in Tennessee. He completed his PhD in 2018 from the University of North Texas with his dissertation ‘Command Unity and the Air War Against Germany.’ His previous publications include ‘Bombing the Romanian Rail Network,’ in the Spring 2018 issue of Air Power History. He has also written ‘The Politics of Operational Planning: Ira Eaker and the Combined Bomber Offensive in 1943’ in the Journal of Military Aviation History. Truxal is currently researching the effectiveness of joint air operations between the Allied air forces in the Second World War. He can be reached on Twitter at @Luke_Truxal.

Header image: Boeing B-29 Superfortresses drop bombs over Rangoon, Burma in 1945. The nearest aircraft is a B-29-25-BA of the 871st Bomb Squadron, 497th Bomb Group, 20th Air Force. (Source: Wikimedia)

#Podcast – Pulp Vietnam: An Interview with Dr Gregory Daddis

#Podcast – Pulp Vietnam: An Interview with Dr Gregory Daddis

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In the latest episode of our podcast series, we interview Dr Gregory Daddis about his latest book, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Before and during the Vietnam War, some of the most popular magazines among those who served were pulp fiction men’s adventure magazines. In this interview, Daddis unpacks the relationship between fiction and reality, how we talk about wars and choose to remember them, and how constructions of gender really matter when we analyse war.

Dr Gregory A. Daddis is a Professor of History and the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History at San Diego State University. A retired US Army colonel, he has served in both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. He has authored four books, including Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam (2017).

Header image: Company E, 2/9 Marines, being re-supplied by a Sikorsky CH-34 during Operation Harvest Moon, 10 December 1965. (Source: Wikimedia)

#DesertStorm30 #Podcast – An Interview with Lieutenant General David Deptula, USAF (Ret.)

#DesertStorm30 #Podcast – An Interview with Lieutenant General David Deptula, USAF (Ret.)

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In the latest episode of our podcast series, we interview Lieutenant General David Deptula, USAF (Ret.). Deptula was the principal attack planner for the Operation DESERT STORM coalition air campaign in 1991. Today, 30 years after the Gulf War, he joins us to talk about that air campaign – planning it, executing it, and evaluating it.

Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.) is the Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He is a world-recognized leader and pioneer in conceptualizing, planning, and executing national security operations from humanitarian relief to major combat. He was the principal attack planner for the Operation Desert Storm air campaign; commander of no-fly-zone operations over Iraq in the late 1990s; director of the air campaign over Afghanistan in 2001; twice a joint task force commander; and was the air commander for the 2005 South Asia tsunami relief operations. He served on two congressional commissions charged with outlining America’s future defence posture. He is a fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flying hours – 400 in combat – Including multiple command assignments in the F-15. His last assignment was as the Air Force’s first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), where he transformed America’s military ISR and drone enterprises—orchestrating the largest increase in drone operations in Air Force history. He retired from the Air Force in 2010 after more than 34 years of distinguished service. He has BA and ME degrees from the University of Virginia and a MS degree from National War College. In addition to his duties as Dean of the Mitchell Institute, he is the RisnerSenior Military Scholar at the US Air Force Academy; a board member at a variety of organizations; an independent consultant; and sought after commentator around the world as a thought leader on defence, strategy, and ISR.

#Podcast – To Fly Among the Stars: An Interview with Rebecca Siegel

#Podcast – To Fly Among the Stars: An Interview with Rebecca Siegel

Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In our latest episode, we interview Rebecca Siegel, author of To Fly Among the Stars: The Hidden Story of the Fight for Women Astronauts. In this interview, we discuss the Mercury Program and the 13 women who went through astronaut training but were not allowed to become astronauts. She also tells us about the process of how to make these complex, nuanced histories accessible to a younger audience.

Rebecca Siegel has a masters degree in English Literature from Loyola University, Chicago. She has worked in children’s publishing for over a decade, editing and writing books for school library publishers.

Header image: Jerrie Cobb operating the Multi-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility at the Lewis Research Center in Ohio. This test simulated bringing a spinning spacecraft under control and was one of many that the women of the Mercury 13 went through in order to qualify for space flight. (Source: Wikimedia)