Sobinka The Airplane A History of Its Technology

By John D. Anderson Jr.

 

 

 

 

This is a simple review.

            “If you are a general reader without a background in engineering and science, but are interested in airplanes and the history of flight, this book is for you.”

If this, the first sentence of the book’s preface, describes you, John Anderson’s book should be in your possession. It is the book for you.

This is a very powerful summation. It is, however, warranted.

Its 359-pages are presented in eminently readable fashion, the type taking up about 2/3rds the width of a page. The remaining width of the page is used for the presentation of inset graphics, photographs, charts and captions. The illustrations, as numbered figures, are linked directly to the text they explain.

Once beyond the temptation of simply perusing the book by dipping into topics that the reader finds particularly interesting, one finds that each chapter is a book unto itself.   The seven chapters divide up the technological history of flight into pre-19th Century, 19th Century, the Wright Flyer, the “Strut-and-Wire” Biplane, the “Mature” Propeller-Driven Airplane and the Jet-Propelled Airplane.

Anderson defines the last two as the First and Second Design Revolutions. One has the sense that, given the opportunity, he could have provided a very detailed account of the Third Design Revolution.

The author has done a masterful job of incorporating the engineering aspects of aeronautics into the narrative of the airplane’s development without overwhelming the reader. In this manner, this book can be read on several levels.

If physics, mathematical symbols and formula scare the reader, simply ignore them. The prose will provide much more insight into the airplane’s development than the average knowledgeable reader brings to the table.

On the other hand, the more one cares to delve into an understanding of the physics and formulae, the greater the comprehension is of what amazing achievements were accomplished by the first aeronautical engineers.

This book is a must have.

________________________________________________

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

1801 Alexander Bell Drive

Reston, VA   20191-4344

©2002

No price indicated

 

Reviewed May 25, 2004

 

 

 

The Story of the Tank Aero Engines

By Richard C. Hill

 

 

This 70-page, softbound, self-published work is obviously a labor of love. While it has its failings, many of which are not insignificant, this monograph nevertheless remains an important work. If Mr. Hill had not written this, then who would have?

My “go-to” reference on aircraft engines, A History of Aircraft Piston Engines by Herschel Smith, gives all of six sentences to the Tank engines. Obviously, if one is piqued by Smith’s description of a “somewhat strange engine,” Mr. Hill’s work is, for now, the best reference.

Not many more than 100 examples of two different Tank engines, Models 63 and 73, were built in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by the Milwaukee Parts Corporation during a period from roughly 1928 to 1932. Other than being a bump in the road of aero engine development, the engines demonstrated what could happen if free-thinking engineers had their way with the status quo.

In this case the status quo was the—almost literally—carved in stone Curtiss OX-5 engine. Its detriments are widely known—complex lubrication requirements and overly weighty liquid cooling system, among them—making for notorious unreliability.

Frank C. Tank, who had some interesting connections, which you will discover in the book, thought that the OX-5 in a Jenny he had bought could be improved. He redesigned it for air-cooling. He convinced his brother, Alfred J. Tank, an engineer, to quit his job and work up the designs with him for the new engine. Together, they approached Edwin J. Michalski of the Milwaukee Parts Corporation to produce the engine. Therein lie the stories of the Tank engines.

The information provided in the stories of the characters and the engines is quite interesting and engaging, if one can wade through the informality of the prose. This is written almost like an expansive e-mail missive. Repetition is rife. Whole paragraphs from one page appear in rewritten form just a page later.   The text cries for an editor.

In general the presentation is pleasant, but frustrating. Where the photographs are about the best I have seen in this type of publication—crisp, contrasty with open shadows, which reveal a fair amount of detail—the same cannot be said for the typography and design.

Paragraphs should be obvious. The only indication of a paragraph is a slightly indented line—about the width of a lowercase “i”—and shortened line of type just above. This presentation gives the sense of one huge block of type. This is neither inviting to the eye nor conducive to digesting information in palatable bites. Further, the use of boxed copy blocks throughout had me dividing my time between reading the body text and the boxed text. It was more a distraction than an aid, which is what it should be.

Despite these failings, I would recommend this to anyone interested in the minutia of aero engine history. There are a number of jumping off points for further research, especially the activities of Frank C. Tank.

________________________________________________

 

Self-published, 2002

$10 plus $2 postage

Available from:            Richard C. Hill

Box 328

Harvard, IL

60033-0328

 

Reviewed December 17, 2003

 

 

 

Douglas DC-6 and DC-7 – Airliner Tech Vol. 4

 

by Harry S. Gann

Specialty Press

1999

 

Harry Gann, who recently died, left the aviation community with a solid body of work. This book, in typical Gann fashion, punches through the veneer of the Tech series of books.

On the surface, the series as a whole, promises much. In reality, they are at best inconsistant in presentation and information.

In this book, Gann’s genius is visible beneath the framework.

Of the 8 books of this series that I own, this is the most comprehensive and direct presentation of the subject aircraft. Unlike others of the series, this book focuses on the topic at hand. The diversions into the minutia and one-offs are focussed and appropriate. If you want to know the history of the DC-6 and DC-7, you can’t find a better starting point than this book.

The point of this particular work is that it is hard to hold a good writer down. The documentation of aviation history suffered a great loss with Gann’s passing.

Reviewed February 2001.

Going Downtown: The War Against Hanoi and Washington

by Jack Broughton

Orion Books, New York, 1988

$18.95

 

Going Downtown is what the F-105 Thunderchief “Thud” drivers called a bombing mission to Hanoi. The subtitle, The War against Hanoi and Washington, nails the point of the book.

Jack Broughton presents a readable narrative of two faces of the air war against North Vietnam from the perspective a combat fighter-bomber pilot.

Broughton’s qualifications as a fighter pilot appear impeccable. Between his 114 fighter combat missions in the Korean War and the 102 he flew in Vietnam, he lead the elite Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s creme-de-la-creme of pilots and aircraft.

It was after reading Broughton’s first book, Thud Ridge, that Tom Wolfe first detected the fraternity of men that he later deemed had “the right stuff.” Indeed, we find that Broughton and Chuck Yeager, the focus of Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, are contemporaries and friends of many years.

Broughton sets up his credentials, those of the aircraft he and his men take “downtown,” and the civilian and military political structure in a coherent narrative.

His descriptions of the raids against North Vietnam are spell-binding. He has a knack for putting the reader in the Thud’s cockpit. But he also paints a vivid picture of men, never wavering in the face of withering defensive fire, who do their job despite the best efforts of the enemy and their own high command.

He is scathing in his references to “Lyndon” and “Robert,” then President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara. We see the war from the combat fighter pilots perspective, a man who deals with a very harsh reality.

Daily, sometimes even twice daily, he goes to work by literally strapping on a machine loaded with tons of volatile fuel and munitions. He deliberately flies into a space where people will throw everything from rifle bullets to telephone pole-sized SAM missiles at him. His reality is that of a warrior, kill or be killed. It’s not pretty. He doesn’t like it. But that is what his country has sworn him to do. Or did they?

Broughton paints another picture of seemingly arbitrary orders. The fighter jocks can shoot at MiGs as long as they’re in the air. Shooting them on the ground is wrong. Thud drivers can attack SAM — surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile — sites, but only if they’re operational. You know when they’re operational because they have fired one or all of their SAMs at you. And the ships… Well, it’s difficult to understand the written orders in the peace of a ready room let alone make a life-or-death decision based on them within seconds.

That sets the stage for the last battle of Broughton’s 25-year air force career. For this he paints another picture, of an air force general in command of warriors he neither flies with nor has any interest in.

His portrait of Gen. John “Three-Finger Jack” Ryan is something out of bad fiction. Could any air combat officer in Southeast Asia believe that that war could be fought with the tactics that brought World War II home to Nazi Germany?

Going Downtown makes the reader ask himself very uneasy questions about how and why these men, who in their words had been hired “to do good work,” were not allowed to do it in a sensible manner. A modicum of common sense is all that is required to see the failings of leadership. The book gives no good answers, nor was it intended too.

It is Broughton’s personal combat with the system and “Three-Finger Jack” that is the most intriguing. I am looking forward to finding something that gives Ryan’s version of the story.

——————–

Published Sept. 26, 1988 by The Richmond News Leader.

An excerpt from this review was used on the cover of the paperback version of Going Downtown.