Terry Love

Paperback. Started 1/23/2020. Completed 1/27/2020. A plane geek and modelers’ book, this volume does have some text at the beginning consisting of a very brief outline of Air America’s history along with that of its immediate predecessor company, Civil Air Transport. That history is followed by five personal accounts of Air America operations by either pilots or maintainers. The rest of the book consists of images of the varied fleet flown by Air America: Beech 18s and its Volpar variant; Sikorsky CH-34s and S-58Ts; Bell 204s and 205s; Douglas C-47s and C-54s; Curtiss C-46s, Dornier Do-28s; DeHaviland Caribou; Helio Couriers; Pilatus Porters; Fairchild C-123s; and numerous other odd aircraft that flew in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s.

An interesting pop culture note about the author’s brief Air America history—Terry Love specifically mentions that Air America did not work with Laotian warlords and illegal drugs, a reference to the depiction of such activity in the 1990 film “Air America” starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr.… (más)

Three stars, But barely, please read the review.
This is a nice coffee table book and by the Amazon star rating criteria, "it's okay". What you get is a nicely illustrated book that devotes a chapter to each major model starting with the Beech 18 (C-45) and finishing with the C-12. A pleasant surprise was the chapter on the T-42 (Baron).

Within the major chapters each number/letter model gets a catalog description style paragraph devoted to it. Use by a major Army command, the Army Security Agency gets a total of two pages of print under its own chapter and a "Vietnam Service" chapter. Otherwise, If you're looking for developmental or unit/operational histories, look elsewhere. I gave the book three stars due the fact that there are little bits of technical and operational use are casually interspersed through-out some of the aircraft descriptions. That's the only thing that kept this book from going to two stars.

Also, the author doesn't really discriminate between a U-21 that had the Queen Air fuselage and King Air 90 wings and the U-21 that was essentially a King Air 200. The U-21F gets a comment about being the 1st pressurized army aircraft and no other comments. The leading particulars are just listed in a very clinical way.… (más)

“flawed book. It's full of valuable information but also conflicting information and gaps/loose ends as well.
The seldom-told story of WWII liaison aircraft, known affectionately as "L-Birds" to military personnel. Along with an historical background explaining the multiple roles of these aircraft, you also get complete specifications for the most significant models including the Stinson L-1 and L-5, the Taylorcraft L-2 Grasshopper, the Aeronca L-3, the Piper L-4 and more... all the way up to the L-12. Carrier operations and unit histories are also included. 145 B&W photos, 10 color profiles and more.… (más)