Dornier Do 335 - An Illustrated History By Karl-Heinz Regnat Schiffer Publications, 2003 ISBN 0-7643-1872-1, 208 pages, hardcover | | The folks at Schiffer continue to turn out some amazing aviation history titles. Such is the case with this latest off the press - an Illustrated History of the Dornier Do 355. The author has covered this subject from about every angle and in significant detail given the limited life of the program and few that actually flew. The Table of Contents maps out the coverage of this subject: -
Origins -
Background to the Do 335 -
The High Speed Bomber Competition -
Propeller versus Jet Propulsion -
The Test Phase Begins -
Continued Testing -
The Pre-Production Series -
Production Status -
Technical Description of the Do 335A -
Evolution - The Do 335B Series: Prototypes and Planned Production Versions -
Production Planning - Illusion and Reality -
War Prizes -
Look Back - The Life Story of an Aircraft -
Exotics -
Signs of the Future Of the 208 pages in this book, almost 100 of them are in Chapter 9, where the author walks through the aircraft subsystem by subsystem. This book contains a great selection of photographs and excerpts of original factory drawings. One of the more fascinating data tables in this book is a performance comparison of the Do 335A-0 against the Me 262A-2a and the Arado Ar 234B, both of which represent Germany's turbine-powered elite. While the Do 335 was heavier than its two jet borthers, it's significantly greater wing area helped to offset that in the air. Nevertheless, the Do 335 was 25 KPH faster than the Me 262 and 30 KPH faster than the Ar 234. The service ceiling of the Dornier was also 100 meters higher than the Messerschmitt and 1900 meters higher than the Arado. This book will provide some excellent reading and reference material for the aviation historian and the modeler alike. Highly recommended! | |