Good Read . . . But . . .

By fStop Fitzgerald | 19 July 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

http://dnasab.net/portfolio/dnasab-photography/ Soaring to Glory

http://thebandchoice.com/slider-2/ A Tuskegee Airman’s Firsthand Account of World War II

By Philip Handleman with Lt. Col. Harry T. Stewart Jr.

Regnery Publishing, 2019. 264 pages. $29.99.

The odyssey of Tuskegee airman Harry T. Stewart Jr. is one that should be known. His travails, starting in early childhood, and his perseverance to achieve goals put out of his reach by racism, make his story a near epic.

**Then Lt. Harry T. Stewart Jr. of the 332nd Fighter Group in Italy, 1945.**
*Harry Stewart Jr.*

While Philip Handleman does relate that story—often in a very heavy-handed preaching manner—it belies the book’s title. Barely 20 percent of the book concerns World War II, and even less is about Colonel Stewart’s participation. Perhaps as much as half the book is not focused on the colonel or the war at all.

Frankly, based on the title, I was expecting Barrett Tillman. It didn’t take long to realize that Handleman is no Barrett Tillman. Colonel Stewart was credited with shooting down three German aircraft on just one mission. That is indeed an interesting story, but where are the reports of missions before and after? There is little history here of Colonel Stewart during this significant period of the book title’s topic.

**Then Lt. Stewart, in the cockpit of his P-51D Mustang** **Little Coquette,** **posed along with his crew chief, Jim Shipley, the day after he shot down three Luftwaffe Fw 190Ds on 1 April 1945.**
*U.S. Air Force*

The author, obviously, knows aviation, but all too often there are digressions that are far afield from his subject matter. For instance, a side trip of two pages about Alexander de Seversky, Tsar Nicholas II, the P-35, and Alexander Kartveli, is a distraction from his theme. It is an education for the unknowing, but it is minutiae that adds little to the work. It is peripheral detail only required of someone learning about aviation for the first time. Based on the title of the book, that is not the target audience.

Overall, this book reads like a primer for a study of racism in aviation. At that, it is good. The author provides significant background information about important, although virtually unrecognized aviators of color, which is very informative. And it does provide a structure to Colonel Stewart’s story. But at times, it seems to be a reach too far to make links that most likely aren’t there.

The book is a quick, easy read. But it is not for someone expecting to read about the Tuskegee airmen in World War II. In that, it is a disappointment because it does not deliver on the promise of its title. That said, the book has significant merit in delineating the history—at least in part—of black aviators in the 20th century.

Expand Your Knowledge

By fStop Fitzgerald | 18 July 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

U.S Cruise Missiles

From Kettering’s 1920s’ Bug & 1950’s Snark to Today’s Tomahawk

By Bill Yenne

Specialty Press, 2018. 203 pages. $34.95.

Unmanned aircraft are, in general, of little interest for me. It is the man—and now, woman—in the cockpit that brings an aircraft literally to life. The story of aviation is more about people than equipment, so I approached Bill Yenne’s work with a bit of a chip.

I was wrong.

This book is a very worthy addition to anyone’s aviation book collection. It is a very solid basis from which to understand unmanned aerial vehicles. And Yenne does put the humanity in these pilotless craft.

The first chapter, “From Bug to Buzz Bomb,” covers the subject from the earliest days of aviation through the end of World War II. This chapter is packed with information, but had me wanting more, especially about the earliest years. Subsequent chapters, however, flesh out the many early projects from the Matador and Mace, through the two versions of the Regulus, Navaho, Snark, Rascal, and Hound Dog. Most of these garner little comment and many details of inception, production, and deployment are generally unknown to the general reader. Yenne changes all that.

One leaves this book with the sense that they have a firm foundation in the history and evolution of pilotless aviation.

For one, I had always been impressed by the XSM-64 Navaho. As a 12-year-old in the ’50s, I simply thought it was neat and never could figure out why it never went anywhere. Yenne dedicates eight full pages to the subject, including a dozen photographs—most in color—and three sets of illustrations and drawings.

The SM-62 Snark was another favorite. How could anyone not love a bright red missile with white markings? Especially if you could get one for 98 cents at your local hobby shop. Yenne gives it 11 pages, eight photographs—but none showing the red versions in color—and six drawing sets and a map.

Both sections significantly added to the knowledge base and clearly explained each missile’s significance.

Just a few missiles, the modern ones—primarily the Air Force’s air- and ground-launched cruise missiles (ALCM and GLCM) and the Navy’s Tomahawk—consume half the book. Their tales are as much a study of military weapons procurement as they are about the design, engineering, production, and use of the missiles. Yenne successfully navigates the minefield of political and military intrigue that appears to surround every weapon purchase. Everything is put in perspective.

Yenne’s prose and presentation of the subject matter is very easy on the reader. Comprehension of even the most complex issues is easy. And, of course, in what appears to a standard for the Specialty Press, the book is printed on thick, high-gloss stock, which reproduces photographs almost perfectly. Few spreads are lacking for imagery. Photographs and informative illustrations and charts are placed where needed to buttress points made in the text.

All in all, this book is worthy of being read and adding to your collection.

What an Addition to the Aviation Bibliography

By fStop Fitzgerald | 18 July 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Boeing B-47 Stratojet: Strategic Air Command’s Transitional Bomber

By C. Mike Habermehl and Robert S. Hopkins III

Specialty Press, 2018. 320 pages. $44.95.

The Stratojet was every 1950s kid’s ideal of U.S. aviation might. It was big. Six jets hanging out there on the wings for all to see. It was fast. It even looked like it was going 600 mph when it was just sitting on the ramp. When discussing “clean” aircraft, the B-47 is among the first mentioned.

It was among the first designs released by Revell in 1954 once that company began producing plastic models from their own molds in 1953. It was re-released in 2006. Yes, the big jet caught the public’s attention. And the Soviets’ as well.

There are nearly a dozen significant books about the B-47, most published since the type went out of service. Thus, they should be very informative about even some of the most classified aspects of the bomber’s operations. Habermehl and Hopkins have very obviously capitalized on this and produced the most recent and perhaps the best on the topic.

This is an impressive work. It easily replaces—replaces—at least five books on my shelves. Few books can make that claim. One gets that sense that the narrative is an airframe-by-airframe, minute-by-minute account of the B-47’s history. It is, however, only a sense. The prose never has the staccato recitation of aircraft and dates. The hardcore airplane junkie readily finds that information in the expansive 66 pages of appendices.

It is the authors’ attention to detail—significant detail—and their logical presentation that yields the sense, but not the reality of information overload. Despite six decades of following aviation, I found many revelations in their work, a number of them surprising. For instance, the Air Force’s FICON (Fighter Conveyor) wingtip-tow project is well known. But the authors, in a section called “Drawing Board Disasters,” discuss not only a B-47/dual F-86 combination, but also a B-36/dual B-47 concept. Surprising as it is, they note that aerodynamic studies supported the feasibility of both projects. But these never got off the drawing board.

The physical presentation of the material is in a word “fantastic.” All books should be printed with this quality. The paper is thick, glossy stock, which reproduces the well-exposed and processed photographs as close to their original state as possible. Of course some images could or should be larger, but in the interest of more being better (more images, more information), they are reproduced large enough for the detail to be seen. Excellent informative graphics and charts are strategically placed throughout the book, further enhancing the narrative.

In this day of paying $50 for specialty books being the norm, this is an unequivocal no-brainer. If you want to know everything about the B-47, if you are interested in the early days of jet-propelled bombers or the Strategic Air Command or simply the evolution of an aircraft, this book not only belongs on your shelf, it must be read and re-read.

D-Day: Remembering Scotty

By fStop Fitzgerald | 6 June 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Bob Frascotti never made it to the beaches of Normandy, yet he was a veteran of that invasion. He was one of the first to die that day.

Just four months past his 21st birthday, Bob—known as Scotty—was to fly one of the first missions of the day. His fellow pilots recall his “superb” singing voice, reminiscent of Vaughan Monroe, and his rendition of “Racing With the Moon.” A fellow pilot from that fateful morning recalled with some grim irony that clouds scudding across the face of the moon that morning may have robbed Scotty of a few vital seconds of visibility that literally meant life or death.

The night before, ground crews of the Eighth Air Force’s 352nd Fighter Group hastily painted their pristine ships with white and black invasion stripes. “Breakfast” was at 2200 on the 5th, with the briefing set for midnight. The “Blue-nosed Bastards of Bodney” were then informed that D-Day had truly begun. Their mission was to fly aerial cover for the landing forces to protect them from air attacks. The 486th Fighter Squadron, Bob’s unit, would be the first to launch at 0230 and he was assigned to the second section of four.

It was Scotty’s 89th mission. Night operations were unfamiliar to the group, which was used to protecting bombers on daylight raids over the continent. Their field, at RAF Bodney, England, USAAF Station 141, was grass. It’s lack of a well-defined illuminated runway compounded a pilot’s issues as the turf blended into the night sky like “black velvet.” A string of temporary lights had been laid, but one of the taxiing Mustangs had snagged and broken the power cable. The pilots had no recourse but to position and orient themselves as best they could in the drizzle and darkness.

RAF Bodney, USAAF Station 141 [© English Heritage, NMR.]

An armorer, Sergeant Jim Bleidner, watched as the red and green position lights on the wings bumped in the night as the planes moved from the dispersal area to their take-off position near the tower on the western edge of the field. A new, second tower was under construction at the east end of the field, directly in the path of their take-off.

Frascotti’s plane, with a pale, weather-worn blue nose, was P-51B-5-NA, 43-6685, named Umbriago. This could be a corruption of the Italian word umbriaco, which means ‘drunk.’ More likely, however, it was taken from the 1944 song Umbriago by Jimmy Durante about a dear friend by that name. The lyrics end: “So when you feel low, better send for my friend, Umbriago.”

The flight lead, Lieutenant Martin Corcoran, turned his fighter into the wind and taxied forward a few feet. Without knowing, he was slightly to the right of the intended take-off line. Using the flame from his exhausts—described by Bleidner as “tiger’s teeth”—as a guide the other three slotted into position. At Corcoran’s command, all four fully laden Mustangs waddled forward in the dark, slowly gaining speed. To fly, the fighters needed an indicated airspeed of 150 mph.

Lieutenant Bud Fuhrman, to Bob’s right, held his craft down as it gained speed. Lieutenant Charles Griffiths, trailing slightly, thought his plane was “glued to the ground.” From his position, he could see the lights of Corcoran’s plane that indicated he was airborne, Then those of Furman, also up. Frascotti, however, off to his left, were slightly lower. Then, at near flying speed, Umbriago slammed into the unlighted unfinished control tower.

The new, unfinished Bodney control tower in the aftermath of Bob Frascotti’s collision.
[© 352nd FG, USAAF]

The unit’s history described the aftermath: “An enormous smear of fire, spewing like dragon’s bile, burned over the tower balcony and flared malevolently onwards as the aircraft disintegrated.” Bob Frascotti was no more.

Griffiths pushed on, his plane still on the ground, but eventually making into the air somehow after striking a net post on sister 328th FS’s volleyball court. In the 328th’s briefing room nearby, a blinding flash lit the area followed by a concussion and flying .50-caliber bullets as Bob’s ammunition cooked off in the flames.

The rest of the group took flight guided by the flickering flames of Umbriago.

United States Naval Aviation 1910-20

By fStop Fitzgerald | 28 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Review Rejected by Amazon

If you have any interest at all in U.S. Naval Aviation, this is the book—in two volumes—that you should have. And I cannot stress this hard enough—IT IS FREE!

I am sick of charlatans reprinting U.S. Government publications—that you have already paid for with your tax dollars—taking the free pdfs from the government web sites and using print-on-demand to provide unsuspecting consumers with an ersatz product.

I wrote a review for the book spelling this out and it was rejected. I’ll have that review below, but this is the supporting information.

This is the hit page on Amazon for the search “United States Naval Aviation 1910-2010”:

I’ll refer to the entries, from left, as 1 through 5.

Let’s start with #2, with no image available. It is not available because this is (supposedly) the official Navy printed book. Its description says so (Publisher). Note its weight and that it is a hardcover. Both are correct for the book as published by the Navy. Note that none of the others are hardcover. The Navy NEVER PRINTED soft cover. The ONLY other OFFICIAL U.S. Government printed version is done by the Government Publishing Office (GPO).This is only available in soft cover and costs $94 for both volumes.

Under the Amazon listing for this hardcover version are just five offerings. One for a tick over $25 and the rest right around $250. I’m assuming that the higher priced versions are the actual official book. (Since those were only given to admirals and offices, wonder who is making bucks off these?) The $26.67 version peaked my interest, so I’ve ordered it, prepared to return it if it is not official. I’ll let you know what I find.

#1, 3, and 5 have reasonable prices, but as I noted they are neither hardbound nor official. Here they are in order. Note the publisher and page count of each. The original has nearly 1,300 pages.

Just so you know the source of all this information [and my upset], I was Lead Editor of Scholarly Publications at NHHC. This was my book from start to finish. I approved the book at every step from editing through production.

As far as Amazon’s other “publishers,” this is what is happening. Just like I am suggesting that you do, these parasites have downloaded the FREE pdfs from the official Navy web site at the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), the group that wrote, edited, and printed the original.

Once they have downloaded the files, they simply stick a cover on it (thus the different covers you see on the Amazon splash page) and post it for sale. When they get an order they send the pdf to their print-on-demand (POD) printer of choice and have them send you the book. You can do exactly the same thing. If you want to have one printed for yourself, you can save a lot of money by linking with your own POD printer.

What have they invested in this money-making scheme? Nothing except the time it takes to download the files, stick a cover on, and email the file to their printer. They are doing this for thousands of government publications that are in reality FREE to you, the taxpayer.

I did not discuss #4 because it is a Kindle edition. Neither the Navy nor GPO has published a Kindle version. But the process is only slightly different. In this case the “publisher” has paid (or done the work themselves) to have the pdfs converted. Once they get the Kindle file, it is readily duplicated and sent out as needed. Again, no real work or outlay on their part.

This is the background. Here is my rejected review:

There is one caveat to reprinting government publications: It is permissible provided you have written approval from the government agency that published the original and that you file for a new ISBN. No one ever contacted us about reprinting with the exception of GPO (who even have to follow the rules above). I further doubt they even know what an ISBN is.

I just remembered I never told you about the book… It is two volumes, the first written by Navy historian Mark L. Evans is a chronology of the century of Naval Aviation. It is thus the definitive Navy statement of what happened, when, and where. The second volume, by retired Navy historian Roy A. Grossnick, is titled “Statistics.” It includes virtually everything anyone would like to know about Navy air, from a complete breakdown of BuNos, to carrier and squadron deployments, to Navy aviators in space. Thus this, too, is the official Navy word on these topics.

Anyway, there you have it. The link to the FREE pages is embedded above. Please check it out if you like Navy aviation.

And so I have witnesses, this is what I ordered from Amazon for $26.67: a used, very good condition, former library book (why are they getting rid of such a substantial and current resource?). It is hardcover and printed by DON. Let’s see if it is the real thing.

Grumman F-14A Tomcat (I)

By fStop Fitzgerald | 27 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Part I

Norman Polmar’s contribution to his Historic Aircraft series in the April 2012 issue of Naval History was one of his most ambitious. It covered three pages instead of the usual two and featured two of my illustrations. Could the F-14 Tomcat deserve anything less?

It also was the perhaps the most complex project for me because there is so much information available about the Tom. There was so much to work with that the first difficult aspect of the project was selecting a base drawing to work from. In the end, it turned out to be base drawings. I ended up with 15 folders of work that included nearly 40 base drawings and hundreds of photographs.

These are a few of my reference drawings.

I think the Japanese do some of the best line work and drew primarily on Famous Aircraft of the World Volume 83 of March 1977 and Volume 89 of September 1977. The Russians also do good work. I used a couple of their books as well. I’ve never been impressed by Kinzey’s work, most of his drawings are little detailed, but I did have his F-14 In Detail & Scale, as well as all the usual offering by Squadron Signal for generic information. Danny Coremans’s Uncovering the Grumman F-14 A/B/D Tomcat is a fantastic picture book that provides a wealth of detail information. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Because again of time, I opted for 2D. This was a lot of fun because it forced me to work with the interaction of compound curves and light. Still not a master but the end results are acceptable.

Part II to come.

Different Look

By fStop Fitzgerald | 24 September 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Vought F-8 Crusader

Development of the Navy’s First Supersonic Jet Fighter

By William D. Spidle
Specialty Press, 2017. 226 pages. $44.95.

Vought F-8 Crusader is the first book by a blogger/researcher with respectable credentials, William D. Spidle. With 40 years in aviation as a licensed A&P mechanic and manager, he is a past president and editor of the F-4 Phantom Society. As he also worked for Vought, he has a vested interest in their aircraft. His blog, http://voughtworks.blogspot.com/, and now this book, represents some of his research with the Vought Aircraft Heritage Foundation (voughtheritage@vought.org) archives.

The book’s narrative, significantly, follows its subhead: Development of the Navy’s First Supersonic Jet Fighter. With the operative word being “development,” it traces the aircraft’s history beginning with a gleam in the eye of Chance Vought Aircraft’s general manager Fredrick Detweiler to convince the Navy that there was “no substitute for the highest possible performance” in their next aircraft. There was no reason a carrier-based aircraft had to play second fiddle to land-based fighters.

The path to parity—and even superiority—is thoroughly and comprehensively described, as are the waypoints of record setting flights. What the reader will not find are squadron histories, operational deployments, and combat actions. Those are deviations from the book’s purpose. And, while there are many well-researched and well-written books readily available on those accounts, nothing out there at this point rivals the documentation and focus of this book.

A quick look at any book’s notes and bibliography is a valid basic guide to evaluating a book’s content. Both are very good indicators of the veracity and depth of the text. If Wiki and the web show up, the author did nothing to advance his research and, more importantly, the reader’s knowledge. While there is no bibliography in this book—a possible clue that secondary sources; i.e., books written by others about the topic, were not a significant factor in this work—every source cited in the end notes is primary, be it a company program plan, report, investigation, or personal letter. What these reveal to the reader are the rationales behind the methodology and decision making for the Crusader. It doesn’t get much more authentic than this.

Supporting all this are drawings, photographs, charts, facts, and figures that define virtually every step from preliminary discussions to the premier fighter aircraft the Crusader became. These include pre-project and “paper”—what-if—projects, development of its variable-incidence wing, its rocket pack, and significant coverage of mock-up and tooling and “coking”—application of the Richard Whitcomb’s “area rule” principle for trans-sonic drag reduction in form of fuselage shaping reminiscent of the trademarked Coca-Cola bottle.

All these points address why we read books—we seek to learn what we do not know. And the author has provided that information in spades. SpecialtyPress addresses the how we read books.

I have written about the press’s “typical” 10-inch-square-format, approximately 200-page, glossy white paper aero books. And I reiterate and quote myself: “typical” is not condescending; here, it means quality and expectation—many high quality, often large, well-reproduced photographs, and crisp, clean reproduction with graphics that ease the reader through the text. How we read this book is a joy.

And again, I am happy to see that Mike Machat is the book’s editor. His presence buttresses the book with an imprimatur of accuracy, authenticity, and readability. SpecialtyPress has done themselves—and us, as readers—a very great service.

This is a very good book. It addresses a well-known and well-documented aircraft from a unique viewpoint, thus advancing the literature of the Vought F-8 Crusader. If you have a number of F-8 books in your collection, without this one, you will be “out of fighters.”

This Was Going to Be a Happy Page Until . . .

By fStop Fitzgerald | 31 May 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

H. L. Hunley: Recovery Operations

Edited by Robert S. Neyland and Heather G. Brown

Washington Navy Yard, DC: U.S. Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, 2016. 348 pages. Free PDF.

This page was intended to be fun, full of joy, because I was just going to point you to a FREE 350-page book, that, if you have any interest in the Civil War navies, archaeology, or practical science would prove to be a treasure. I was not going to review it, primarily because I edited it. But then, in searching for a photograph of its cover to post with this, well, I made a disturbing discovery.

First, a little aside about books. There are editors, then there are editors. Dr. Neyland and Heather Brown are the editors as listed on the cover. This is their book. Essentially, editor in this case is a different type of author. They compiled, organized, solicited papers, and in a few cases, wrote them, to create this book. I was the editor who went behind them to clean it up. Frankly, it was among the easiest editing jobs I ever had, because basically all I had to do was read it, and with the exception of one chapter (which was so far beyond my comprehension) it was a particularly enjoyable—and easy—read.

For me, this book provides all the information I wanted to know about Hunley ever since I first read of her discovery. And, it is very readable. Of course, as I freely note, these are very biased comments. I never intended to write them. I was just going to say, if you have such interests as noted above, here is the link to a free PDF of it. It may be worth your while.

To find a cover photograph to accompany this piece, I made a Google search for the book title. The largest image was at Amazon. Going to the site, I immediately noticed the book only had three stars. Three stars? For this? What idiots are out there?

Then I looked at the reviews. (https://www.amazon.com/H-L-Hunley-Recovery-Operations/dp/1542856094) There were only two, one with five stars, the other with just one.

I couldn’t have written a better five-star review than the one there. The author, Mike Crisafulli, even adds a last sentence I would have added. And I respond to it: The archaeologists and conservationists are preparing such a follow-up book. I can’t wait, either.

The author of the one-star, “Florida Buyer,” is not an idiot either. I would have written this same review as well. “Poor B&W printout of a color PDF. Get the color PDF free.” That opened my eyes.

Our books—that is those books produced by the U.S. Government at government (read taxpayer) expense—are free. They belong to you and me because we have already paid for them. In practicality, the physical documents of course do cost. But, with the medium of PDF and eBooks, they can be widely and genuinely distributed for free. That is why you will see me hawking a lot of them. I want everybody to know these exist. They are yours, you’ve paid for them, all you have to do is pick them up.

The government outlet for federally produced books has always been, by statute, the GPO—Government Publishing Office (formerly Government Printing Office). There you could purchase books at a bargain because you were just charged actual printing and shipping costs. Books purchased from them are as they were intended for publication and as you would see them at a brick-and-mortar book shop. But they cannot print and store every book created by all government agencies. They have to be selective, so not everything is available. Electronic files have changed that.

The government’s freely available PDFs, however, have allowed other retailers to step in. And this is the apparent genesis of the one-star review.

You, me, or anyone else can download these free PDFs and have them reproduced by print-on-demand printers to have hard copies. Yes, that is correct. Everyone with internet access—YOU, right now—are a book publisher with a simple two-step process. (1) Download the PDF. (2) Send it to an on-demand printer.

I checked out the publisher for the $35 version of this book on Amazon, and guess what? CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform is an Amazon company. Without any other knowledge, I am going to extrapolate here at the risk of being sued. On the surface of things, it looks like Amazon discovered a cash (federal) cow.

Granted you do get something for your $35. However, and again this is based solely on the Amazon page and the review, the quality is not as intended. The original book you would have received from GPO was printed in four-color on slick glossy paper. The type and images were sharp, crisp, and clean. Apparently this is not so with the Amazon version.

I’d like to check the copyright page on that reprint. Legally, to reprint the book for sale, a republisher is supposed to (1) get permission from the government for reprinting, (2) purchase and receive a new and different ISBN number, and (3) file for a new CIP data block. I’d like to know if Amazon did this or if they are using the government data, which would be illegal.

Bottom line: If you are buying from Amazon, or any other on-line store, check the book’s publisher. You can easily take the exact same PDF file they have and reprint through on-demand for a lot less than their $35.

Now, go enjoy the book. For free.

Source: H. L. Hunley: Recovery Operations

Good Starter Book

By fStop Fitzgerald | 29 May 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Aviation Records in the Jet Age: The Planes and Technologies Behind the Breakthroughs

by William A. Flanagan

Specialty Press, 2017. 192 pages. $39.95

My sense—and that is all it is, a sense—is that the author’s title was much closer to simply Aviation Records rather than as now titled, and that marketing got a hold of it, and tried to spin it for sales. Frankly, if purchased by title alone, you should get your money back. The first jet doesn’t appear until page 32 of the 183-page book; losing nearly 20 percent of the real estate. And that doesn’t include about 20 more pages concerning non-jet aircraft, but are technically within the scope of the title as their records were set in the jet “age.”

Enough about titles and spin. Ignore the title. What do you get for your money?

Easily more than 50 percent of the book is dedicated to imagery, most of it large, and all of it very detailed. They are well reproduced on the typical slick glossy stock one recognizes as a Specialty Press trademark. The text is well written and authoritative, but it is not Ernie Gann. And that is okay; because the book is aimed at facts, not prose.

But with that in mind along with the title, one would expect to see easily digestible charts showing progression over time or comparisons of higher, faster, farther. There are none. If you want to know the speed increase from 1945 to 1955, you’ll have to search for each in the text and make the comparisons yourself. The only enumeration of records can be found in three pages of two appendices, and at that these are not readily decipherable as each entry is in narrative form. Frankly, I haven’t figured them out.

Appendix One: Speed Records, sub-category Progressive Speed Records In Aviation History lists just 13 records. Obviously this is incomplete. Worse, it has four “No. 10”s. Two could be justified, I guess, because they are for “First Speed Record Faster Than 2,000 mph” in both jet and rocket categories. But the other two 10s are for 3k and 4k mph, all on different dates. Sub-category Major World Speed Records, which numbers to 24, begins with No. 2, includes two No. 4s, and is missing (I think) Nos. 6, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, and 19. Thankfully, the third sub-category, Significant Speed Flights by Mach Number, is not listed by number so there is no confusion on that score.

In the absence of any explanation for this numbering, this is indicative of poor—very poor—editing. What about the rest of the book?

And among the triumvirate of aviation records, farther does not appear at all.

The author provides each of the chapters with a variety of interesting and well-illustrated sidebars to expand on his work. For instance, Chapter 5 relating to airliners and Mach 2 fighters includes a near full-page reproduction of a Fairey Aviation Company advertisement hawking their Delta 2’s official world speed record of 1,132 mph, a sidebar on boosted flight control systems, and one on Russia’s race to have the first jetliner. And that is typical of the chapters. There is so much more here than simply records that it is obvious the author was thinking far beyond the range of the limitation put on his work by the current title.

For me, this book was disappointing in that it did not add much to what I already knew. I am always interested in comparisons and an author’s reasoning for why and how such advances occurred. While there was little to change my views on the subjects, that will not be the case for all readers.

There is much very good and well-explained detail in this book and I highly recommend it for those getting their feet wet in aviation and its goals of higher, faster, farther.

Aviation Records in the Jet Age is available from Specialty Press at 1-800-895-4585 or www.specialtypress.com.

Reviewed May 2017

This Delivers

By fStop Fitzgerald | 29 May 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

World’s Fastest Single-Engine Jet Aircraft: The Story of Convair’s F-106 Delta Dart Interceptor

By Doug Barbier

Specialty Press, 2017. 228 pages. $44.95.

I like this book not least because I like the aircraft, but mostly because of the Delta Dart’s relative invisibility among comprehensive aircraft histories and this fills that gap. Certainly there are the Squadron Signal monographs, but they only barely scratch the surface of this incredibly complex aircraft and the air defense system of which it was a part.

The author does a credible job at exposing and explaining the complexities. It was very good to see Mike Machat listed as the book’s editor. That alone adds an imprimatur of accuracy and authenticity. Bravo to Specialty Press for that hire!

The book is typical of Special Press’s 10-inchers; their square-format, approximately 200-page, glossy white paper aero books. “Typical” is not condescending; here, it means quality and expectation—many high quality, often large, well-reproduced photographs, and crisp, clean reproduction with graphics that ease the reader through the text.

World’s Fastest delivers.

It is because of the F-106’s complexity that the book has 23 (!) chapters to better organize and aid reader absorption of all the information. The narrative traces the delta speedster from its origins in the F-102B, its MA-1 electronic “heart,” weapons, design studies and proposed variants, issues with service integration, deployments, the addition of a gun, squadrons and markings, NASA service, and much more. There are also six appendices, which provide the detail facts and figures of contracts, model numbers and differences, and more.

I don’t want to call it the complete book, but it is as close as I can imagine. I do, however, have a quibble, and from where I sit as both a reader and editor, it is not insignificant.

The title sucks. Fourteen words is entirely too long. The main title is very misleading. Its wording led me to believe that this was a book about all fast single-engine jet aircraft. If it was titled The World’s . . ., I would have immediately known it was the Delta Dart. As I noted in a previous review, it is my sense that marketing stepped all over this, and again, to the book’s detriment. I am not intending to re-title it, but I would more likely pick up something that read like Slashing Dart: The F-106 Story or its ilk than as titled.

A title should intrigue not be the whole story.

This book is worthy of your time and money.