At the Controls: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Cockpits

This is perhaps the finest collection of cockpit photographs in existence. The Museum (NASM) holds the world's premier collection of historic aircraft, but visitors to the museum must maintain a respectful distance. In At the Controls, NASM photographers Eric Long and Mark Avino use creative lighting techniques and an extremely wide-angle lens mounted on a short-bodied, large-format architectural camera to duplicate the sensation of actually being at the controls inside the cockpit of 45 legendary aircraft. The reader experiences a pilot's-eye view of the cockpit.

Among the 45 featured aircraft are these history-making planes:

• Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer
• Blériot Type XI
• Fokker D.VII
• Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis
• Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VII
• Focke-Wulf Fw 190F-8
• Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik
• Messerschmitt Me 262
• Boeing B-29 Enola Gay
• Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse
• Project Apollo Lunar Module
• Space Shuttle Columbia