Gordon SwanboroughReseñas

Outlines the history of the use of airplanes in battle and provides descriptions and specifications for fighter planes ranging from the 1916 Sopwith Camel to the 1978 Mirage

hardback

hardback

For many years, William Green and Gordon Swanborough formed a writing team that produced voluminous, detailed, factual writing about aircraft. Their material was ubiquitous and comprehensive. This volume is from a series called "World War 2 Aircraft Fact Files" produced by Macdonald & Janes in the 1970s. It details all the significant - and some of the more obscure - aircraft of the day, as prescribed by the title. This volume covers the products of the Bell and Curtiss companies. There are detailed development and production histories, and a slightly broader account of each type's service record.

Before Wikipedia, this book and many others like it were the go-to source for any historical information on warplanes of the era. Colour is restricted to a two-page spread of representative profiles, but there are plenty of acceptable photographs and a number of three-views and some detailed cutaways. This book and its shelf-mates are never going to be classics of aviation literature - indeed, they do make rather dry reading - but they are comprehensive and worth acquiring if you ever see any.

Japanese Army Air Force Fighters, Part 1 From the back cover--- In the years immediately prior to Pearl Harbor, the Japanese aircraft industry was popularly regarded in the West as copyist and incapable of original designs; moreover, Japanese combat aircraft were widely believed to be outdated by international standards and derivative of obsolescent American and European designs.....

When German forces initiated the assault on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 the Luftwaffe enjoyed almost total supremacy. The fighter element of the Soviet Air Force was immersed in a major re-equipment programme resulting from belated appreciation of the fact that its aircraft had fallen woefully behind world standard. This first part of a two-part Fact File - devoted to all types of indigenous fighters operated by or developed to experimental status for the Soviet Air Forces - is primarily concerned with the products of the design bureaux led by Lavochkin and the partnership of Mikoyan and Gurevich, whose fighters, when first opposed by the Luftwaffe, enjoyed indifferent success. Whereas the Mikoyan-Gurevich team largely concentrated its wartime efforts on creating specialised high-altitude fighters which were to receive low development priority owing to more pressing needs, Lavochkin was to overcome early setbacks and achieve outstanding success by the continuous refinement of one basic design; a process epitimized by the La-7 which played a major role in the closing stages of the conflict.

Part one covers the fighters Boulton Paul, Bristol, de Havilland and Gloster and includes, with one exception all the multi-seat and multi-engined fighters that reached operational service; the Defiant, Blenheim, Beaufighter and Mosquito. Also included in this volume are details of the RAF''s FIRST two jet fighters, the Gloster Meteor and the de Havilland Vampire."

Soort naslagwerk m.b.t. vliegtuigen. Voor mij van grote waarde omdat ik zeker weet dat ik het in 1978 in de Noord Nederlandse Boekhandel in Leeuwarden gekocht heb.

Da quando si sono presentati sulla scena, negli anni cinquanta, gli aerei con motori a getto, la forma dei velivoli civili da trasporto è cambiata assai poco. La gran parte dei viaggiatori vola in aeroplani la cui configurazione ricade tra le poche, consolidate e ben sperimentate, oggi in uso. Davvero alcuni tipi di aeroplani, pur originando da fabbriche che distano mezzo mondo, appaiono così simili da essere difficile distinguerli. Sarebbe comunque sbagliato da ciò desumere che la tecnologia è rimasta ferma negli ultimi trent'anni. Lo scopo dei sei capitoli che costituiscono la prima sezione è appunto quello di mostrare quali progressi siano stati fatti nel progetto dei velivoli, nella loro costruzione ed esercizio. Sotto la pelle di un aereo, che è probabile oggi incorpori pannelli o superfici in qualcuno dei nuovi materiali cosiddetti compositi, molte cose sono cambiate. I calcolatori hanno preso il sepravvento migliorando il controllo dell'aereo, permettendo così di volare più sicuri ed in modo più confortevole, comunque siano le condizioni del tempo. Nella cabina di pilotaggio, oggi due uomini fanno il lavoro di quattro, più agevolmente e meglio. I passeggeri godono di migliori servizi in cabine più grandi ma pagano in termini di moneta reale, per ogni chilometro volato, meno che mai, grazie agli affinamenti che l'aerodinamica ha portato nel progetto per migliorare l'economicità operativa. Come descritto nei rispettivi capitoli, sviluppi ancora più eccitanti si annunciano. La forma degli aerei sta cambiando, dal momento che le ali si arricchiscono di alette alle estremità e le fusoliere diventano sempre più larghe. E mentre questi cambiamenti prendono piede, sviluppi sempre più radicali si intravedono nella propulsione, dove la ventola spingente 'propfan' è diventata la parola d'ordine degli ultimi anni.

Surprisingly comprehensive, given that in 1975 we had little free access to Soviet aircraft.

Nostalgia - Opening this book immediately took me back to the very early 1970's, when I bought my first copy (number 3?) of the new Air Enthusiast magazine. It was on a pleasant, warm, August day that I happened to be with my new wife and we happened to be passing a bookstore's magazine stand at the Golf Mill shopping mall in Niles(?), IL....

This is similar to the Air Enthusiast Quarterly magazine of the mid 1970's. It celebrates the Indian Golden Jubilee 1932-1982. It is awesome to have a 'magazine' that has such advertisements:

Dornier 228 - The next Generation Light Transport Aircraft
Rolls-Royce - for its aero engine, not its cars
British Aerospace - no thank you, I'm not in the market for a Sea Skua anti-shipping missile at the moment, but maybe next month
Mahindra and Mahindra - my company just started doing business with them when I was retiring
Etc.

I counted 11 cutaway drawings. There are numerous colored profiles (4 pages worth). The photographs are high quality, as is the writing. It even has a few cartoons and jokes.

Side note - During World War II my father flew as a radio operator on C-87 transport aircraft (and C-46, C-47, C-54, C-107, B-24, ?), flying over the Himalaya mountains (The Hump). India, aviation and the military have always been special to me.

Excellent in content, scope (every fighter aircraft ever flown), and presentation.

In Process

There are errors:

On page 418, there is a minor error for the MS406 cutaway drawing. The last of the descriptions do not agree with the drawing. Number 78 was inserted in the drawing, but was not inserted in the descriptions and the following descriptions were not updated. For the descriptions, numbers 78 through 82 should have been changed to numbers 79 through 83, with number 78 (for the machine gun ammunition drum?) being inserted. I certainly rate this as a very trivial error.