Book Reviews
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Convair B-36
A Comprehensive History of America’s "Big Stick"
Meyers K. Jacobsen
ISBN 0-7643-0530-1
Schiffer Military History
$69.96
Reviewed by Norm Filer
This is a SERIOUS book! It is 9x12, over 1 1/2 inches thick and weighs over 5 pounds. Obviously a labor of love, the amount of detail and information go way beyond normal.
Jacobsen has spent the last 25 years researching the B-36. His contacts and interviews with those associated with the airplane give us a good perspective about the whole era and the airplane.
The "Those Who Served" section is great! Dozens of people, from low ranking enlisted troops to officers, reminisce about the airplane.
The major Navy/Air Force fight over who would possess and deliver the bomb and the resulting appropriations battles sound just like politics today. Jacobsen reports this well.
The down side is that the author sometimes lacks perspective. This is where a good publisher comes to the forefront. The editor shapes and focuses it, and at the same time corrects errors and grammar. Schiffer has provided us with many great books, but editors they are not! Jacobsen has done much better than average. What is most noticeable is the questionable inclusion of everything even remotely related. Example: in 1953 the Air Force christened an RB-36 in honor of Mathew Brady, the Civil War photographer. Apparently no photo of the actual aircraft exists, so we see a stock photo in original form, a retouched one, and a photo of Brady!
There are hundreds of photos in this book, but often they are just dots in the sky, or busy objects on the ground. Fewer, but larger photos pertinent to the subject may have been better
One noticeable error was a photo of a pile of guns labeled as "a stack of 20MM gun barrels" at Tucson. With so many good drawings and photos in his book showing the M-24 cannons used on the B-36, he should have recognized a stack of M-3 50 Cal. machine guns.
Another error is in the section related to the GRB-36. All of the F-84s are labeled RF-84F. The series of photos showing ground mating do indeed show an RF-84F. The in the air hook up series actually shows the prototype F-84F.
The above errors, are insignificant compared with the amount of good solid information presented.
In summary, I really like it. It provides a huge collection of photos and drawings a B-36 modeler could benefit from. If like me, you also want to know about the development of your modeling subjects, this one is a keeper!
Reviewed by Tom Cleaver The Fighter Ace is the 20th Century's version of the knight errant, and a topic of endless interest to airplane modelers. For the modeler who is starting to get interested in just who it was who flew the original version of that model sitting on the shelf, Wayne Patton's book is a good general introduction to the subject of flying aces, with biographies of representative aces of the major air arms of the First and Second World Wars, and Korea. Some of the aces whose biographies are found here are not the "usual suspects" one would expect; I was particularly glad to see the French, Italian and Japanese aces that were included here, and glad that the US aces weren't the standard "top guns." It was also good to see Yevgeny Pepelyaev, the top ace of the Korean War here, accompanied by some of the new information that is coming out about that war, now that Russia and the West are talking to each other. "Fighter Aces" is a subject I feel I know well, and I can say that the biographies of the men whose stories I am aware of are clearly written and factually accurate, which leads me to believe the others are, too. I wish I could say I liked the artwork as well as I did the writing, but such is not the case. The color paintings are in a somewhat cartoonish style I don't personally go for as an artist, but they do provide a modeler with sufficient markings information to do the aircraft flown by the men whose stories are in the book, and that is a good thing. Maybe Aeromaster, Cutting Edge or SuperScale will pick this up and put out some of these on their upcoming sheets. Recommended. All in all, this is a good first stop for a modeler who is getting interested in history, before graduating on to some of the more definitive histories.
"Aces"
By: W. Wayne Patton
Publisher: Squadron/Signal Publications
Reviewed by Tom Cleaver With the renewed interest in the aircraft of the former Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, Hans-Heiri Stapfer's book on the fighters that were arguably the best produced for the Red Air Force during the war is a welcome addition to modeler's research literature. It was certainly useful to this reviewer in a current kit-bash project to produce an accurate 1/48 La-5FN model. As is standard with Squadron's "In Action" series, the book provides both a developmental and operational history of the aircraft, with plenty of illustrations showing the physical differences between the La-5, La-5F, La-5FN and La-7 aircraft. There are plenty of photographs of the various types, three-view drawings and specifications, and drawings of detail differences such as canopies and exhausts. Now if only someone would come out with a good La-5 in 1/48, your reviewer would be entirely happy. This book is highly recommended.
"La-5/7 Fighters In Action"
Aircraft No. 169
By: Hans-Heiri Stapfer
Color By: Don Greer
Illustrated by: Ernesto Cumpian and Richard Hudson
Publisher: Squadron/Signal Publications
Reviewed by Tom Cleaver This latest from Squadron's "In Action" series comes at a good time for builders of the Tamiya kit. As is usual with these publications, there is a well-written developmental history of the aircraft that provides the modeler with information about the differences between the various sub-types, and a capsule operational history, all accompanied by lots of photographs and Don Greer's excellent color profiles. The book covers both the straight wing F-84A-G Thunderjet and the F-84F and RF-84F Thunderstreak. This modeler was very glad of Squadron's timing in releasing this, and found the book of particular use in working on the latest Thunderjet to join my collection. Highly recommended.
F-84 Thunderjet In Action
Aircraft No. 61
By: Larry David & David Menard
Illustrated by: Don Greer
Publisher: Squadron/Signal Publications
Reviewed by Alan Smithee With the publication of U-BOAT WAR, Squadron/Signal's 1977 U-BOATS IN ACTION finally has a big brother, and the two nicely complement each other. Although the dedication is to "... all the men who fought on the seas during WWII", there is little about the individuals involved. The author has instead chosen to concentrate on a broad overview of U-boat operations and the war's influence on U-boat design and evolution. The text is sprightly and flows seamlessly from mention of the first submersibles with separate surfaced and submerged propulsion in 1896 toGötterdämmerung on 04 May 1945. Unfortunately, that is a lot of ocean to cover in a sixty-four-page narrative. The result leaves the reader wanting more, but it at least provides enough information to target further research. The earlier U-BOATS IN ACTION provides more specifics on the various U-boat types. However, scale modelers will still want U-BOAT WAR for its plentiful photographs, of which I could only find two that overlapped with the former book. Where U-BOAT WAR excels is in its profile paintings and numerous boat insignias in color. Alas, the book is not without errors. The implication in the text is that Dönitz had forty-six U-boats at the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. In fact, he had fifty-six submarines, forty-six of which were able to immediately put to sea. Of those only twenty-two were capable of operating in the Atlantic. (Interestingly, in February 1941, the grand total of operational U-boats actually fell to twenty-two!) Also several U-boats are misidentified as to type in photo captions, starting with U-505 on the back cover. She is a type IXC, not a VIIC, and conning tower numbers were not used during the war, a fact acknowledged in the book itself in the photo caption on page eleven. U-116 was a type XB, not a IXB; U-528 was a type IXC/40, not a IXC; U-2513 was a type XXI, not a IXD; and, to the best of my knowledge, the "Milchkuh"U-tankers were simply type XIVs, not XIVAs, even though there was a type XIVB on the drawing board. It is in the photographs and their captions where the author gives the most information about the boats themselves. It also is there where the book comes closest to the promise of the dedication, where we finally get a feeling for the lives of men, who continued to fight bravely though ultimately doomed to near certain death merely to tie up some Allied naval assets. Taken altogether, despite its failings, U-BOAT WAR ends up being a useful and reasonably priced reference.
U-BOAT WAR
by Timothy J. Kutta
© 1998,
Squadron/Signal Publications
Carrollton, Texas, 64 pages.
$9.95
$12.95 Reviewed by Tom Cleaver One of the most recent additions to Bert Kinzey's outstanding "Detail & Scale" series is this book on the early bent-wing birds, covering the F4U prototype, F4U-1 "birdcage," F4U-1A, F4U-1C, F4U -1D and F4U -2 Corsairs, as well as the Goodyear F2G variant. With the recent release of Tamiya's F4U-1D to accompany their earlier F4U-1/2, modelers have all the information needed to make any one of these versions. The book contains accurate 1/72 scale drawings of each version, lots of black-and-white photos, and the usual "center spread" of color photos for a detailed "walkaround" of accurately-restored Corsairs showing cockpits, wing folds, landing gear, etc. The final chapter has reviews of all available Corsair models in 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scale, with the good and bad points of each set out in detail. This book was already helpful to this reviewer in making a Fleet Air Arm Corsair IV from Tamiya's F4U-1D correctly with the right canopy and prop for the specific variant. Highly recommended.
"F4U Corsair In Detail & Scale" - Volume 1
By: Bert Kinzey
Published by: Squadron/Signal Publications
$12.95 Reviewed by Tom Cleaver Published earlier this year, Bert Kinzey's book on Grumman's big "Turkey" came in very handy to this reviewer when making the Kendall TBF-1 conversion with wingfold to Accurate Miniatures' TBM-1C kit. Anyone with any interest in modeling this important airplane will want this book in their reference library. In the now-standard format of full developmental history and capsule operational history, backed up by lots of black-and-white photos and 1/72 scale three-view drawings and with color walkaround photos of accurately-restored Avengers, this book will provide a modeler with all the information to completely trick-out A-M's kits, get the various Hasegawa kits right, and generally avoid wasting time and money on other kits that do not come up to what we need nowadays. This book demonstrated its usefulness to me, and it is highly recommended.
"TBF & TBM Avenger In Detail & Scale"
By: Bert Kinzey
Publisher: Squadron-Signal Publications
Reviewed by Richard Marmo This is the first volume in a continuing series of company histories that focus on U.S. aircraft manufacturers. And you couldn't find a more important company to start with than VULTEE AIRCRAFT. If you wonder why I say that, consider that Vultee -thanks to mergers and five name changes- would end up some sixty-odd years later as General Dynamics before finally merging with Lockheed. At any rate, all books in the series use an 8 1/2 x 11 horizontal format. The semi-stiff front and back covers of the Vultee book feature color photos (single photo on the front and four on the back). Between the covers are 132 glossy pages holding 231 b/w photos along with 23 3-view and line drawings. Most pages contain between one and three photos. Intended as a record of all designs developed by Vultee, most of the photos come from company archives. So if you're expecting to find a collection of operational photos -including combat service where appropriate- you won't. There are plenty of other publications for that purpose. What you will find are uniformly excellent photos showing a lot of detail, 3-views in 1/96 and 1/144 scale, line drawings showing differences in variants and more. The exact mix you get depends on the specific aircraft in question. You'll find tables, project number lists, a bibliography and much more. The only fly in the ointment (and there is one) is the lack of an index that will enable you to look up an aircraft by the production or military designation we're all familiar with. You're either going to have to know the company designation or take the time to thumb through the book to find what you're after. Not that big a problem in the scheme of things. VULTEE AIRCRAFT 1932-1947, indeed the entire series, is an absolute must if you're interested in U.S. aircraft. $29.95 from Jonathan Thompson/Publisher, 1331 South Birch Street, Santa Ana, California 92707 (Ph. 714-542-7145). Checks and Money Orders only.
VULTEE AIRCRAFT 1932-1947
by Jonathan Thompson
Reviewed by Richard Marmo Second in the company history series from Jonathan Thompson/Publisher, focus this time is on the 51-year history of MARTIN AIRCRAFT. Continuing with their established 8 1/2 x 11 horizontal format and semi-stiff covers, you get 208 glossy pages, 366 b/w and 14 (five on the covers) color photos and a combined total of 46 3-view and line drawings. All photos are of excellent quality and most come from the Martin Aircraft archives, a fact that will endear this series to modelers with a passion for detail. Line drawings, an occasional ghost view, detail photos of engines, flap structure and more. They're all there, along with a few unusual variants. Anyone interested in building a B-10 on floats? XB-48? XB-51? And then there's the Model 145A. Huge in size, it looks like an XB-15 with twin tail booms and six engines. Never produced or even built, but think what a model of it would look like in your showcase. The Marauder design, in all it's variants, consumes twenty pages and includes a gorgeous full page color photo of 441st BS, 320th BG Marauders during a mission. Foreground aircraft is Belle Ringer, carrying nearly 100 mission markers. You'll find a three page bibliography and two pages of project numbers with military/production designation, whether or not it was cancelled, years produced and how many. And that little fly in the ointment continues with no index so you can't look up aircraft by their commonly known designations. Again, a minor problem. Priced most reasonably at $33.95, this is another must have. See the VULTEE AIRCRAFT review for ordering information.
MARTIN AIRCRAFT 1909-1960
by John R. Breihan/Stan Piet/Roger S. Mason
Reviewed by Richard Marmo Jonathan Thompson/Publisher strikes again with a superlative company history of FAIRCHILD AIRCRAFT. This time, their now-standard 8 1/2 x 11 horizontal/semi-stiff cover format gives you 184 glossy pages, 294 b/w and 22 (four on the covers) color photos and a combined total of 35 3-view and line drawings. As is usual with the books in this series, photos are generally excellent, each page containing between one and three photos. To say that this book is informative is understatement of the first magnitude, particularly for those of us (most of us?) who think of the PT-19, C-119 and A-10 when we hear the Fairchild name. If you fall in that group, you'll find at least 80 per cent of the aircraft designs covered to be those you've never heard of. Or heard of but knew nothing about. For example, the XC-119H, which was a long wing span heavyweight version of the C-119. You'll find a couple of photos and a small 3-view. Then there's the T-46, a fascinating little USAF trainer that -unfortunately- was the death knell of Fairchild Aircraft. FAIRCHILD AIRCRAFT 1926-1987 is another must have for your reference shelf and is priced at $33.95. Full ordering particulars are listed in the VULTEE AIRCRAFT review above.
FAIRCHILD AIRCRAFT 1926-1987
By Kent A. Mitchell
Reviewed by Richard Marmo The fourth and latest company history from Jonathan Thompson/Publisher takes on North American Aviation. That it was not a small undertaking is evident from it's description as Volume 1. Volume 2 is nearing completion and will be the next addition to the series. Published in their familiar horizontal/semi-stiff cover format, they've given you 204 glossy pages, 348 b/w and 27 (five on the cover) color photos, along with a combined 20 3-view and line drawings. Coverage begins with the XO-47 and ends with the FJ-4. In between, there are substantial sections on the T-6 family, B-25, P-51 and F-86. This you expect. But you also find the Vega Model 35, as well as an excellent group of photos showing the B-18, F-82 and B-45 to name a few. Photographic quality is uniformly excellent and you'll usually find between 1 and 3 photos to a page. There's also production tables for most aircraft types and a 4-page bibliography. And the usual lack of an index. Again, a minor irritant but no big problem. Carrying a price of $35.95, not only is this another must have, I can't wait for Volume 2. Full ordering particulars can be found in the VULTEE AIRCRAFT review above.
NORTH AMERICAN AIRCRAFT 1934-1998, VOL. 1
by Norm Avery
Reviewed by Richard Marmo This very useful publication packs information on the insignias of 186 different nations into 138 slightly oversize (8 1/2 x 12 3/4) pages. The entire package is wrapped in semi-stiff covers. There are over 500 color illustrations that do an excellent job of cataloging the changes that occurred over the years in each country. Also, brief thumbnail histories of each country's development. Politics are often part of that history. For example, the country of Guinea-Bissau (You're not alone. I never heard of it either) became independent in 1974 and formed an Air Force in 1978 with Soviet assistance. All in all, a very interesting, informative and useful addition to your bookshelf. Particularly if your interests lie in the offbeat and obscure markings. Countries covered run literally from A (Afghanistan) to Z (Zimbabwe). In between, you'll find more than a few countries that you never knew existed. Benin, Burkina Faso, Kirghizia, Lesotho and Swaziland to name a few. Do realize that this book is a collection of illustrations that focus strictly on insignias. There are no photos, nor do they belong here. The book has a specific job to do and it does it very well indeed. At a price of $29.95, it deserves your serious consideration.
MILITARY AIRCRAFT INSIGNIA OF THE WORLD
By John Cochrane & Stuart Elliott
To order, contact Naval Institute Press Customer Service, USNI Operations Center, 2062 Generals Highway, Annapolis, Maryland 21401-6780. Telephone number is 800-233-8764 and they have a web site at https://www.nip.org