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Classic Wings Magazine WWII Naval Aviation Research Pacific Luftwaffe Resource Center
When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 8:59 pm 
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I happened to come across a book the other day that listed a number of aviation-related books published by the Ronald Press Company. While the majority were already mentioned in two previous posts (1, 2), I found that four were not. Luckily, all were available in full online:

Ronald Press Company Books (1931)
(Source: Principles of Flight)

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:54 pm 
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The National Library of New Zealand recently proposed deaccessioning its Overseas Published Collection. As part of this effort, it produced a spreadsheet of all of the books that would be affected. I took that list, searched for entry that included either "aircraft" or "aviation" in the title, eliminated everything else, and cross-referenced it with the books in this thread to determine what had been missed. I may have missed a few, but the results, both direct and indirect, are below:

Assorted Books

Similar to the Curtiss section mentioned in a previous post, here's a collection of Wright Aeronautical manuals:

Books and Manuals by Wright

The following list omits books by the author not about aviation:

Books by Burr W. Leyson
  • American Wings
  • Aeronautical Occupations
  • Flight Training for the Army and Navy
  • The Air Raid Safety Manual
  • Wings for Offense
  • The War Plane and How it Works
(Source: Elements of Mechanics)

Finally, a couple of notes:
  • Although the books aren't yet vintage, I figured I'd mention the Aircraft Profile Book Series Catalog thread as it is similar in format and goal.
  • I have been adding as many books as I can to the aerospace section of the List of autobiographies Wikipedia article. So if you would like to read some firsthand accounts of aviation history, go check out the list over there. As of this post, it includes 46 books.
  • I came across a particularly relevant website called Rare Aviation Books.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 11:27 pm 
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For fun, click on the link above to see the book
Building Model War Planes.
Written in 1942 with the approval of the Navy as an aid to the kids who were building wooden models for aircraft recognition purposes.
Some notes...
They call the "Zero" the type 001...and is a pretty wild guess.
Likewise, the FW-190 is pretty speculative.

But perhaps the biggest surprise is the call the B-17E, the "Super Flying Fortress".
I have never hear that before.
I suppose it received that nickname for the many changes between it and earlier "shark fin" B-17s.

The P-38 is included as is the war-winning P-43...( :) ) but no Thunderbolt or Mustang, not surprising given the date.

People went to a lot of effort to build surprisingly accurate models...they stress getting wing shape, dihedral and angle of incidence correct.

Togay, they'd just hand out plastic kits...or more likely, direct them to a website.

It's interesting to see what information was available to aircraft enthusiasts during the war.

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Last edited by JohnB on Tue Dec 28, 2021 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 12:16 am 
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JohnB wrote:
But perhaps the biggest surprise is the call the B-17E, the "Super Flying Fortress".

Hey! Another one to add to the B-17 etymology thread!

JohnB wrote:
Togay, they'd just hand out plastic kits...or more likely, direct them to a website.

It's interesting to see what information was available to aircraft enthusiasts during the war.

On that note, while composing my last post I came across a book that I really want to get my hands on now. It's the Aircraft Design Sketch Book by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. I wasn't able to find a properly digitized copy, but there is a sales listing with an considerable amount of photographs.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 1:49 pm 
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Noha, several copies of Aircraft Design Sketch Book on Abebooks... get in there quick!


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:54 pm 
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Hooligan2 wrote:
Noha, several copies of Aircraft Design Sketch Book on Abebooks... get in there quick!

Ah, but there's one catch though: those are all reprints. I know it's a bit picky, but I was hoping for an original. Unfortunately, the originals tend to be a bit on the pricey side. However, you did spur me to buy a copy I found last night in a bit poorer, but still acceptable condition.

Ironically, the book has a very strict prohibition on reproduction, but I'm guessing the copyright was never renewed, so there's probably no issue there.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:06 pm 
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Noha307 wrote:
Ah, but there's one catch though: those are all reprints. I know it's a bit picky, but I was hoping for an original. Unfortunately, the originals tend to be a bit on the pricey side.


Ah, didn't realise that - mind you, the reprints seem quite pricey to me! :D


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:54 pm 
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It wasn't until I started working on this post that I realized how spoiled I was by HathiTrust. Unlike previous cases, I couldn't find a good portion of the books below in their collection. Their collection, because it seems to mostly come from universities, obviously would skew towards more technical publications rather than popular fiction.

Assorted Books
  • Aviation Mechanics Simplified[1]
  • Cloud Country (Part 1)[2]
  • Cloud Country (Part 2)[3]
  • Cloud Country (Part 3)[4]
  • Conquers of the Sky[5]
  • Flying[6]
  • Horizons Unlimited[7]
  • The Flying Carpet[8]
  • The Flying Squad[9]
  • Wings of the North[10]
  • Wings Over Europe[11]
  • Young Eagles[12]

Books (Aviation Pulps)

I did run into two series of technical standard setting publications in their collection though:

Technical Standards Publications
(Sources: HathiTrust, Internet Archive)

Please note that the committee that produced the documents in the second subsection above had no less than five different, yet similar, names during its existence:
  • Army-Navy-Commerce Committee on Aircraft Requirements (by 1938)
  • Army-Navy-Civil Committee on Aircraft Requirements (by 1940)
  • Army-Navy-Civil Committee on Aircraft Design Criteria (by 1941)
  • Air Force-Navy-Civil Committee on Aircraft Design Criteria (by 1948)
  • Subcommittee on Air Force-Navy-Civil Aircraft Design Criteria of the Munitions Board Aircraft Committee (by 1950)

Finally, ANC-5 went on to become the Metallic Materials Properties Development Standardization Handbook.

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Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Apr 10, 2022 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 27, 2021 5:59 pm 
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I received my copy of the Aircraft Design Sketch Book in the mail today and, I must say, it is one of the best books I have ever purchased. I would highly recommend everyone pick up a copy. (On that note, if you're not into historical book collecting, I would consider buying one of the reprints as are significantly cheaper than an original. However, I cannot speak to their production quality.)

I find this to be rather ironic, given that it is essentially nothing more than a collection of drawings excerpted from the popular aviation periodicals at the time. Specifically, Aeroplane, Aviation, Flight, L'Aeronautique, and Jane's All the World's Aircraft. This includes copying the original accompanying captions. (Some of which are still in the original French!)

However, this is also one of the booklet's biggest downsides. Since the drawings are taken out of context it is not clear as to which aircraft they show; and while a good portion are readily identifiable to the aviation enthusiast, others are far less obvious. Two problems exacerbate this: First, the majority of the drawings depict only portions of aircraft. So while an entire Grumman Goose is distinctive, its landing gear, shown in isolation, is not. Second, while the book is well organized - being divided into sections according to the part of the airplane covered - the layout on each page is a bit haphazard. In some cases, it is difficult to determine which illustration original caption is referring to because it is located close to two of them.

Nevertheless, the drawings are really good. I doubt you'll find a more accurate, detailed, or better labeled explanation of aircraft cutaways and sections unless you have access to the original blueprints themselves.

One of the reasons that it is such an excellent work is that it was compiled at a perfect moment in time: 1940. This means that, on the one hand, it includes all the cutting edge aspects of aircraft construction of the prewar era. Yet, at the same time, because it was produced so early in the war, nothing had been tested in combat and therefore the ineffective and impractical designs had not yet been weeded out. So all of the concepts that would later be forgotten by history are included. (For example, all but the final drawing in an Axis History Forum thread appear in the booklet.) It's a good reminder that when the war started there were no B-29s, P-51s, Lancasters, or Typhoons, but only B-17Bs, Hawk 75s, Hurricanes (described as "The Fastest Fighter in Service"), and Harrows. Finally, if you forgot that the United States was not yet at war, although it makes up a minority of the subject matter, there's still even some coverage of commercial aircraft.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:46 pm 
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Something I learned recently is that Hap Arnold published a series of six children's books in 1928. They are:

Aviator Series

He also authored a number of more general works about aviation. Although partially covered in previous posts (1, 2), for the sake of completeness they are included below:

Other Books by Hap Arnold

On the subject of works by famous American military aviation leaders, while working on the aerospace section of the List of autobiographies Wikipedia article I came across two good lists of such works starting on page 591 of Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939 and on page 5 of Airmen and Air Theory: A Review of the Sources.

Finally, a few assorted books:

Assorted Books

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 12:02 am 
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Although British aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White has been mentioned in previous posts (1, 2), he actually wrote a good number more books than the few that have been presented thus far. Note that, for the sake of completeness, the books already mentioned have been repeated in the list below:

Books by Claude Grahame-White

I think its easy to forget how much people of the time became hooked on Charles Lindbergh. As one blog post discussing an advertisement for struts put it: "Overnight, Charles Lindbergh was the omnipotent god of all things aviation. If his plane had Aerol Struts, then you knew those were the best struts in the galaxy." Similarly, a cottage industry sprung up, with each claiming to offer its readers insight into the "Lone Eagle". Much like the Arnold and Grahame-White books above, more than one author also used his story as a moralizing tale for young boys:

Books About Charles Lindbergh

Other Books

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:34 pm 
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Aviation dictionaries were another popular subject. Interestingly, quite a few of them were published in multiple languages.

Dictionaries

Assorted Books

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2022 10:43 pm 
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Assorted Books

McGraw-Hill Book Company Books
  • Klein, Frank D. Process Practices in the Aircraft Industry. First. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1942.
  • Selm, Bernard H. de, ed. Manual of Aircraft Production. First. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1943.
  • Weick, Fred E. Aircraft Propeller Design. First. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1930.
  • Aircraft Engine Design[3]
  • Aircraft Instruments[4]
  • Aircraft Layout and Detail Design[5]
  • Aircraft Mechanical Drawing[6]
  • Aircraft Power Plants[7]
  • Aircraft Production Standards[8]
  • Aircraft Production Illustration[9]
  • Aircraft Riveting[10]
  • Aircraft Welding[11]
  • Human Factors in Air Transport Design[12]
  • Introduction to Aircraft Design[13]
  • Mathematics for Aircraft Engine Mechanics[14]
  • Mechanics of Aircraft Structures[15]
  • Practical Aircraft Sheet-Metal Work[16]
  • Principles of Aircraft Engines[17]
  • Production Engineering in the Aircraft Industry[18]

Sir I. Pitman & Sons Books
  • Aircraft Electrical Engineering[19]
  • Aircraft Performance Testing[20]
  • Airframe Construction and Repair[21]
  • Electrical and Wireless Equipment of Aircraft[22]
  • Electricity in Aircraft[23]
  • Instruments[24]
  • Marine Aircraft Design[25]
  • Metal Aircraft Construction[26]
  • Metallurgy for Aircraft Engineers[27]
  • Practical Aircraft Stress Analysis[28]
  • Practical Performance Prediction of Aircraft[29]
  • The Flight Testing of Production Aircraft[30]
  • The Materials of Aircraft Construction[31]

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 07, 2022 10:15 pm 
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Another grab bag of books, this time from the World War I era:

Assorted Books

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2022 3:40 pm 
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I appreciate your considerable efforts.

If nothing else, it may impress in younger enthusiasts the fact that the "golden age" of flying wasn't all daring stunts by guys in leather jackets in biplanes.

There was quite a bit of science and research in the subject.

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