Technology, Culture, and Fighter Pilot Nostalgia

Our guest today is Dr. Michael W. Hankins. Dr. Hankins is the Curator for US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. He is also an Assistant Editor of From Balloons to Drones, a scholarly web journal for the study of air power, and host of the From Balloons to Drones Podcast. He is a former Assistant Professor of Strategy at the USAF Air Command and Staff College eSchool of Graduate PME, and a former instructor of military history at the USAF Academy. He earned a masters in history from the University of North Texas in 2013 and a PhD in history from Kansas State University in 2018. Dr. Hankins’ book, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia was recently released from Cornell University Press, and we’ll be talking about this great book on the podcast today.