Norman Polmar is an author and historian specializing in the naval, aviation, and intelligence fields. He has written or coauthored more than fifty books, including Spyplane: The U-2 History Declassified (2001) and, with John Gresham, DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis (2006; foreword by Tom Clancy). The latter was the basis of the Discovery Channel film DEFCON-2 , in which Tom Clancy did the opening and closing scenes. Mr. Polmar also has written about aircraft in other books and was author of nine editions of the reference work Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and four editions of Guide to the Soviet Navy . He writes a column on historic naval aircraft for Naval History magazine and is a columnist for the US Naval Institute Proceedings .

Lieutenant Colonel John Bessette , US Air Force (Ret), is a veteran Air Force navigator and intelligence officer who flew in various combat aircraft during the Cold War. For three years he flew as navigator in C-97G cargo aircraft configured for spy missions over East Germany and the Baltic region. From May 1968 to August 1969 he was assigned to the 3rd Special Operations Squadron at Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam, where he flew more than 1,200 hours as a navigator in AC-47 "Spooky" gunships. A three-year assignment in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) followed, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Reconnaissance Center (JRC) with assessments on the military and political risks of reconnaissance missions worldwide and the anticipated intelligence gain from them. He subsequently served in NATO air intelligence positions, retired from the Air Force in 1979, and after a year, rejoined DIA as an intelligence analyst specializing in the Soviet and Warsaw Pact air forces. He retired from DIA in 1996 to begin a third career as a researcher and author. Hal Bryan is EAA's Senior Editor and a lifelong, second-generation pilot and aviation geek. He's logged time in a variety of aircraft types, most of them old and weird, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

He lives in Oshkosh with his wife, Muffy, and two benevolent dictators disguised as cats. Michael H. Gorn served formerly as deputy Air Force historian and as chief historian of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. He earned a doctorate in history from the University of Southern California. Gorn is the author of more than a dozen books, including NASA's Forgotten Genius: Hugh L. Dryden and the Foundations of the American Space Program , and he has been featured in interviews on BBC, History, and the Discovery Channel. He is a recipient of the AIAA's Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Award for Expanding the Envelope: Flight Research at the NACA and NASA. Cory Graff is the Military Aviation Historian at the Flying Heritage Collection museum in Everett, Washington.

In his free time, he works on aviation-related history projects, including exhibits and books. His articles have been published in Air & Space Smithsonian magazineand the Museum of Flight's Aloft magazine. Graff is the author of five previous aviation books, including Shot to Hell: The Stories and Photos of Ravaged WWII Warbirds , Strike and Return: American Air Power and the Fight for Iwo Jima , and P-47 Thunderbolt at War . He lives in Seattle, Washington.