Category: Naval

Expand Your Knowledge

Expand Your Knowledge

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buy me a rose lyrics U.S Cruise Missiles

buy Clomiphene legally 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.

United States Naval Aviation 1910-20

United States Naval Aviation 1910-20

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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)

Grumman F-14A Tomcat (I)

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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

Different Look

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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 . . .

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

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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

This Delivers

This Delivers

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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.

Reviewed May 2017

 

Find Your Surprise

Find Your Surprise

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Wave-Off!: A History of LSOs and Ship-Board Landings

by Robert R. “Boom” Powell

Specialty Press, $39.95

 

For a number of years, Specialty Press has been producing books in a seemingly standard 10 ¼-inch square, approximately 200-page format. “Boom” Powell’s Wave Off! is among them. That in itself, says nothing about the book, yet it does.

A series of books gives the reader expectations; a sense of quality, presentation, attention to detail, factualness, readability, and even likeability. That’s the truth of these books. Once you have seen two, you have a reasonable expectation of what you will get with a third. It’s a comfort.

And so it is with Wave Off!

First thing—I wasn’t disappointed. Second is the flip side of that comfort—surprise. And I was.

I am familiar with Boom’s work and background. It’s hard to poke around the Internet and not cross paths with him if your search terms include “naval aviation,” “Scooter,” and “Viggie.” So combine a known container and a known content provider and you should get what you expect. And more. That’s the surprise.

This book goes far beyond a history of LSOs—Landing Signal Officers—the seasoned pilots who stand on the port quarter of a carrier guiding—and grading—their fellows to a controlled crash onto the flight deck. The story has to start at the beginning and it does, with the pre-carrier days, when Britain and the United States first began trying to combine ships and the new fangled contraptions called aircraft.

What is so enjoyable about this author’s work is that he deftly melds the human experience with what is essentially a nuts’n’bolts story. Granted he has a lot to work with, the line between fact and sea story is often easily and readily blurred. And he is not afraid of limbs. Historians love—or hate—“firsts.” Nothing gets their attention quicker than seeing that word. Firsts are seldom black-and-white. Take first-to-fly for example. Unless you carefully insert the modifiers “engine powered” and “controlled” among a couple others, you’d be wrong. Powell enumerates a fair number of firsts in this work, but is seldom declarative. He paints the full picture, so the reader walks away with not a simple fact, but an understanding. Such is found in his description of the first LSO: “There are many stories on how the LSO came to be; some apocryphal, some embellished. The most accurate . . .”

Powell not only provides basic instruction and comprehensive illustration of American “Paddles,” but also British, Japanese, and French techniques. The Japanese used a light system, which somewhat presaged the current optical landing system first deployed on U.S. carriers in the mid-50s. Unlike a human being, the Japanese system could not provide the “stable approach” and “anticipate the ship’s movement” in heavy seas to get a safe landing.

The author delves into the minutia of paddle construction, LSO platform and training before walking the reader through the carrier battles and operations of World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam, and today’s “flashpoints.”

For me, the most significant chapter is the “Landing at Sea Revolution” in carrier operations fostered by the turbojet engine. Faster/farther required heavier aircraft. Aircraft design for higher speeds almost naturally forced higher landing speeds. Through World War II and the Korean War straight-deck carriers—think floating moving pitching rolling tombstone—handled flight ops by stringing cable barriers between landing space and parking. This even worked for the Generation One jets off Korea. But there was no safe way to make good a botched landing attempt; thus the impetus for the angled deck. Add the mirror landing system, which was now stabilized to the ship’s movements, and high-powered steam catapults, and you have the basis—with a few thousand more tons—of a supercarrier. Boom nicely packages this narrative.

I mentioned surprises. A two-page sidebar, “Let’s Add a Hook,” is one. It discusses adding hooks to what were only designed and built as land-based aircraft. It includes a fantastic full-page painting by Craig Kodera of a modified P-51D Mustang, renamed Seahorse for the Navy, on approach to Shangri-La (CV-38) during November 1944 trials.

My biggest surprise though, is the VA-46 landing chart on p. 134, which happened to be provided by a friend, retired Captain Dave Dollarhide, who also happens to be listed on the chart. What it doesn’t mention is that most likely this chart was from Forrestal’s (CVA-59) ill-fated Southeast Asia cruise to Yankee Station in July 1967.

Get this book. Find your own surprises. They are here in abundance.

“Wave-Off!” is available from Specialty Press at 1-800-895-4585 or www.specialtypress.com.

Reviewed May 2017

Gamble and Gain

Gamble and Gain

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Nimrod’s Genesis: RAF Maritime Patrol Projects and Weapons since 1945

by Chris Gibson, Hikoki Publications, $49.95

 

This book is a specimen of an aviation genre upon which the Brits seem to have a stranglehold: aircraft that never were. The books are enticing because their hallmarks—quality printing, excellent photographic reproduction, integrated design, and numerous line drawings—are focused on capturing the reader’s and purchaser’s attention. They do this very well. That they are printed in China is more a statement of the cost of similar endeavors in the West than it is of the derived quality in the East.

Unlike historical fiction for things that never were, this category of aviation literature has a very valid substrate: the furtherance of the aeronautical art. Aviation blind alleys can actually lead to hardware. Hence aircraft vaporware is worthy of study and reportage.

The issue with such books is how far to push the defining boundaries. Nimrod’s Genesis may be just on the edge. Subtitled “RAF Maritime Patrol Projects and Weapons since 1945,” this is 222 pages of unbridled decadence for the minutiae loving aviation buff. Yes, it is an acquired taste, and on the surface may not appeal to yours. It certainly didn’t mine. But author Chris Gibson knows how to reel you in.

The opening chapter isn’t even about aircraft. It concisely sets the stage for subsequent chapters by painting a picture of the “enemy,” the Soviet/Russian Navy, and in particular its submarines. This he follows with a chapter on sensors, how they work, the tactics required for each, and weapons used to counter targets. All these are very well illustrated. Explanatory graphics are clear, concise, and informative. The subsequent chapters about the aircraft begin with the end of World War II and flying boat projects and continue through short- and medium-range maritime reconnaissance, long-range land planes, NATO and the so-called Trinity three-in-one project, and continue chronologically to today.

Gibson’s writing is focused, there are no distracting side trips into unrelated matters. There is a flow to his work that is easy for the reader to follow and one often leaves a chapter with the thought that “I didn’t know that,” or “That makes sense.”

My only criticism with this book—and it applies to the entire genre—is that they tease you with such interesting drawings and sketches and leave you wanting because they are too small to be of real value other than to illustrate a shape.

I would not have gambled on the subject. It is too far removed from my comfort zone. But I would have lost by not picking it up.

Nimrod’s Genesis is available from Specialty Press at 1-800-895-4585 or www.specialtypress.com.

Reviewed June 2015

By God, You Are Going to See Airplanes

By God, You Are Going to See Airplanes

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“Blue Goose” Command Aircraft of the USN, USMC, and USCG 1911 to 1961

by William A. Riley and Thomas E. Doll, Ginter Books, $35.95

 

Steve Ginter’s Naval Fighters series is well known to aviation fans. Discounting his parallel Air Force series, there are 100 volumes in the set to date. “Blue Goose” is the 100th. Devotees of the series are likely to be thrown off by this new edition, for unlike any of its forebears, this does not focus on a single type or model of aircraft. The subject is the nebulous “command” aircraft. The authors never define the term and therefore the structure is just as nebulous. Judging by the content, a command aircraft is anything any commander ever flew. This includes down to the squadron level. But even that definition does not coincide with the text, photos, and drawings provided. The contents are literally all over the aviation map of the U.S. sea services.

If the book is purchased based solely on the cover, the buyer may be disappointed. For while the cover screams “Blue Goose” Command Aircraft and features a very nice colorful painting of SU-2 BuNo 9095 (which in ALL details looks amazingly like the photo of O3U-3 BuNo 9300 on the bottom of page 26 including the Wasp engine’s exhaust, but not that of the Hornet that powered the SU-2) only 12 pages of the more than 125 in the book cover the era of the true blue geese.

At the heart of this publication is a narrative about aircraft colorings and markings interspersed with concise battle narratives. In this regard it serves neither topic well. There is a very nice little section on the “Halsey-Doolittle” Raid. (This never existed. In all contemporary documents—including Navy—it is the Tokyo Raid, Raid Against Japan, or the Doolittle Raid. Look it up. Revisionists changed the name to give the Navy not only a presence, but also predominance.) What does this have to do with Blue Goose or command aircraft or even naval aircraft markings? There are also action reports from Midway, Guadalcanal, and Operation Torch. Again, what is the relevance to the book? Then there is a two-page advertisement for digital aviation art. Apparently the artist provided his work gratis in exchange for the ad. This doesn’t belong in a book, at least not presented as part of the text flow. But this is not surprising in a Ginter book.

Books consist of two things: content and design. In this one the content consists of both text and graphics in the form of photographs and computer art. The text has already been addressed. The photographs and their reproduction, on the other hand, are—again typical of a Ginter publication—very good. I have worked with a number of these images and am impressed by the quality with which they have been reproduced. The artwork gives a reasonable impression of how many of these aircraft, only seen today in black-and-white photographs, may have looked in color.

The other component, design, relates directly to how the content is conveyed to the reader. This design leaves no doubt that the book’s message is to be gotten through the photographs. Ginter uses every bit of real estate to put something in ink. The problem is that no, the world—and books—are not flat. Every piece of information is not as valuable as every other piece of information. That is why traditional books have title pages, copyright pages, introductions, and prefaces separated from the main body of the text. And it is especially evident in relative photo sizes; some are played big, some small. The text in Ginter’s books is laid out in stream-of-consciousness fashion. Author bios seamlessly segue into copyright data, which seamlessly turns into acknowledgments, introduction, and finally text. In this, Number One Hundred is no different from the 99 that came before.

What this allows, however, is every other bit of real estate to be used for images and this it does as intended. Traditional photo books guide and direct the reader by playing large off small, details versus general. There is none of that here. Ginter knows you want to see airplanes and by God you are going to see airplanes. You want to see the detail, you will see the detail.

My two cents: this is a worthwhile purchase IF you take a quick look at the content and know what it is really about and you want to see a lot of decent, and in a number of instances very good, photographs of airplanes. You will be disappointed in the text, except for that which actually discusses the blue geese.

If you think a disgruntled purchaser wrote this, you are wrong. The publisher provided this book gratis for me to review. This is my unvarnished take.

“Blue Goose” is available from Specialty Press at 1-800-895-4585 or www.specialtypress.com.

Reviewed June 2015

 

A Known Quantity

A Known Quantity

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Douglas AD/A-1 Skyraider: Part Two – The Navy Squadrons

by Steve Ginter, Ginter Books, $55.95

 

The 99th iteration of Steve Ginter’s Naval Fighters series is the second part of three focused on the Douglas AD/AD-1 Skyraider. This covers operational U.S.  Navy squadrons. The first volume, no. 98, spanned everything from development to test aircraft to variants, R&D units, CAG units, hacks, Marine active duty squadrons and much more. Volume three, as yet unannounced, will cover Navy and Marine Corps reserve units as well as Air Force and foreign operators of the type.

Those familiar with Ginter’s publications will be right at home. If you like his other offerings, this will not disappoint. For those new to the genre, Ginter’s mantra is airplanes, airplanes, airplanes, and make the photos large, sharp, and crispy. Text is at a premium. Think Sgt. Joe Friday of the LAPD and “just the facts, ma’am” and that’s what he delivers.

The squadrons are presented in numerical order and include designation changes if applicable. The text is a staccato of squadron established (date), operated (insert aircraft here) until (date) when they received (insert new aircraft here), etc. This is followed by a narrative, at times expansive, of the squadron’s history. This is not a criticism. It is what the author intended  to provide and it is homogenous across all 273 pages of the book. In some instances he adds charts, which further expand a squadron’s operations highlighting not only the diversity of variants on hand at any given moment, but also how fluid the squadron equipping was at times. These are interesting additions. My only quibble here is I’d like to see the information sourced. I’m certain he didn’t create these out of thin air, but it would be helpful (and increase the information’s value) if sources were cited.

I have no comments on the photographs except to say they are many and in virtually all cases up to Ginter’s high standards. If you like Spads, this book is a value just for the photographs.

By far, my favorite portion of the book was the all-too-short five-page narrative about VA-195 and its attacks on what became fictionalized as “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” and the torpedo attack against the Hwachon Dam in March and April 1951, respectively. The photographs are a modeler’s and artist’s God send.

There is little to fault here as the author is a known quantity, you accept his simple premises, and like aircraft.

Douglas AD/A-1 Skyraider: Part Two is available from Specialty Press at 1-800-895-4585 or www.specialtypress.com.

Reviewed June 2015

All photographs and illustrations on this site are © J. M. Caiella unless otherwise indicated.
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