List of Books by Walter J. Boyne. See all books authored by Walter J. Boyne
About Walter J. Boyne
Walter J. Boyne was the Director of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution from 1983 to 1986, and Acting Director from 1981 to 1983. He retired in August, 1986 to pursue a career as a novelist, nonfiction author and consultant. He is one of the few writers to have both fiction and nonfiction books on the New York Times Best Seller lists. An inventor, he has been awarded a patent on an advanced information retrieval system. He is currently chairman of the board of the National Aeronautics Association, and on July 21, 2007 was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. He has served twice as an expert witness for Lockheed Martin, once in 1999 and once in 2003. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the National Aeronautic Association.
A career Air Force officer, Boyne entered the Aviation Cadet program in 1951, and won his wings and commission in 1952. He has flown over 5,000 hours in a score of different aircraft, from a Piper Cub to a B 1B, and is a Command Pilot. Boyne retired as a Colonel on June 1, 1974 after 23 years of service. In November, 1989, he returned for familiarization flights in the B 1B bomber.
He began writing articles on aviation subjects in 1962, and has since then completed more than 1,000 articles, forty-four non-fiction books and eight novels. His books have been published in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Japan and China. He is the author of aviation sections in the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as in three other encyclopedias, including Encarta. He is the editor of the (2002) Encyclopedia of Air Warfare, by ABC-Clio.
His latest novel Hypersonic Thunder is the third of a trilogy on the history of jet aviation. In 2007, he published “Soaring to Glory, The Air Force Memorial” and “Beyond the Wild Blue, A History of the United States Air Force, 1947-2007. In 2003, Dawn Over Kitty Hawk was published by Tor/Forge, part of St. Martin’s Press, It was followed by The Influence of Air Power on History, published in July, 2003, by Pelican Publishing. His Chronicle of Flight, a 95,000 word, 1,000 photograph history of flight appeared from Publications International in August, 2003. His Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong and Why was published by TOR/Forge (St. Martins Press) in that same month. In October, 2003, Rising Tide, the story of the Russian and Soviet submarine force was published, co-authored with Gary Weir. In December, two works were published that Boyne edited, Aviation 100, Volume III, and The Alpha Guide to the Military