About Flying Machines Press

A Brief History

Flying Machines Press (FMP) was founded by Jack Herris in 1992. Jack was born in 1946 in California and graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S. in aeronautical engineering in 1971. He served in the U.S. Navy, first as a nuclear reactor operator instructor and later as a pilot, flying Lockheed P-3B Orions out of the United States and the Far East. He then joined the Laser Fusion Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

A World War I aviation history consultant to the U.S. Air Force Academy, Jack started Flying Machines Press to provide aviation enthusiasts with a source of high-quality books. As he puts it:

"I have always been interested in aviation, so much so that I got a degree in aeronautical engineering and became a naval aviator. As a reader of aviation books and literature, I admired the contribution made by the authors but was not interested in pursuing the years of research necessary to write a book myself. However, I discovered that I could make my contribution by helping authors get their books on World War I aviation published with quality."

Alan E. Durkota, the other principal in Flying Machines Press, created much of the artwork for the original FMP books. He was born in Connecticut in 1960 and worked at Sikorsky Aircraft as an electrical engineer specializing in military radar systems. Alan was a founding member of the Igor Sikorsky Historical Archives and has served on its board of directors. He has also been a member of the League of World War I Aviation Historians since its inception and is a regular contributor of both articles and artwork. An avid model builder, Durkota has some of his creations on permanent display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Foundation for Aviation World War I in Princeton, New Jersey. As an aviation artist, he has created hundreds of color illustrations for various journals, magazines and books.

Jack Herris launched Flying Machines Press in order to publish Peter Grosz's massive, definitive book, Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One. Peter had been sitting on a complete manuscript for several years, but he could not find a publisher willing to produce the book with the photo content he desired. Existing publishers wanted a small-format book with 300 photos; Peter wanted a large-format book and 800+ photos. FMP finally published the book in November 1993 with 903 photos on oversize 10" x 12" pages and with 26 pages of original color plates. (It has since been updated and reissued by FMP.) It was an outstanding, definitive book that satisfied the needs of historians, enthusiasts, and modelers alike.

Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One set the pace for subsequent new titles from Flying Machines Press. FMP went on to publish a series of large-format, richly illustrated, information-packed books on some of the greatest combat aircraft of the First World War and beyond. In 2000, Flying Machines Press was purchased by Paladin Press of Boulder, Colorado, one of the country's leading publishers of military titles. The latest incarnation of FMP continues to offer most of the classic original titles and has since released a number of brand new books with the same lavish format and detailed content as the highly regarded earlier works. For a complete listing of our titles, go to Current Titles.