This entire series is a wonderful way to learn history or teach it to adolescents. I find today's generations seem to recall more when they learn through other people (pop songs, celebrity gossip, etc.), so what better way to teach history than through someone else's perspective? Yes, "authentic" diaries would be "better", but would the language really hold the modern student's attention? Did the diary writer know what WOULD be important in the context of history? Probably not. ( )

Action packed, this little book gives a glimpse of aerial warfare during World War I. Jack Fairfax, impish and daredevil, is representative of the personality usually associated with flying aces. The book also does a good job of describing the training, the planes and their beginnings and of course, the aces both on the Allied and German sides, that shaped the War, including the infamous Red Baron.
For me the most valuable parts were the descriptions of the land below and the terrifying mud, including Oswald's horrific experience and terrible demise : an unblemished look at the horrors of war. ( )

Jack Fairfax is 19 years old, just finished school and comes from a family steeped in military tradition. He is the second son of Lord and Lady Fairfax and a bit of a rebel. When he tells his parents that he is volunteering for the Royal Flying Corps, they do not approve. The "new-fangled" flying machines are nothing to do with the "proper" type of warfare.
Oswald Fairfax, the elder brother, has done the "right" thing and joined the family regiment. He has already been sent to The Front.
Jack and his friend, Alan Dixon, become fully qualified pilots and are then taken into the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).
They eventually join a squadron and get experience in a number of the early aircraft of the time. Many of their friends and fellow airmen lose their lives. When Alan gets shot down Jack vows to avenge him and shoot down the German pilot responsible, when, or if, he finds him.
Jack flies over the Western Front in his Bleriot and De Hav's and faces many of the problems of the WWI pilots, not least the one of survival.
The war eventually ends but the lives of everyone he knows have been changed by the years of war. ( )