As a sequel to the
aerospace manufacturer logo project, I have foolishly taken on another similar effort: aircraft 3-view diagrams.
Many aircraft articles on Wikipedia, feature a 3-view drawing of the subject aircraft on the right side in the specifications section. However, far, far more are missing them. To this end, there is a
page on Wikimedia Commons where wanted 3-views can be requested. After adding a few requests there (as I lack the artistic skill necessary to create them myself), I realized that the page has unfortunately been dormant for some time. However, as mentioned in a
post in a different thread, a few months later I came across a document titled "
Japanese Aircraft Manual" on HathiTrust. Far from instructing the reader on how to operate Japanese aircraft, it is instead a recognition manual with 3-view drawings of the subjects. Three factors made it excellent for this purpose: 1) the drawings were sufficiently large, 2) unlike most recognition materials from the period, the diagrams were line drawings, not silhouettes, and 3) it was a military manual, making it public domain. From there, the scope of the project somewhat metastasized and there are now 100 American aircraft line drawings, 23 Japanese aircraft line drawings, 1 other aircraft line drawing, 6 American aircraft silhouette drawings, and 8 Japanese aircraft line drawings in a
section on my Wikimedia Commons userpage.
So far, in addition to the above, I have sourced 3-views from:
- a booklet titled Operational Japanese Aircraft provided via email by the Emil Buehler Naval Aviation Library at the National Naval Aviation Museum (special thanks to Bob Thomas),
- two pages (1, 2) with Standard Aircraft Characteristics/Characteristics Summaries on a website called Alternate Wars,
- a section on the National History and Heritage Command website,
- a USAAF silhouette handbook on HathiTrust,
- AirCorps Library (special thanks to Ester Aube),
- and a few other sources.
However, there are still more I am seeking. I have reached out to one or two aircraft manual sellers so far, but the examples they have still do not cover all of the bases. Therefore, the first of the two purposes of this post is to ask if anyone has access to 3-view drawings of any of the aircraft in the
"To Find" section of my userpage. (A further significant motivation for this project was to aid in the distinction between similar looking aircraft by creating side-by-side or overlapping comparison images, so the section has been divided into categories such as "American Liaison Airplanes" or "World War II Japanese Twin Engine Airplanes".) Remember that all of the conditions in the previous thread apply to this project as well. The main one is that they must be public domain or have an equivalent license. (Effectively, this means that if the drawing does not come from a U.S. military or government document, it must be
defective, i.e. lack at least one of the following: the word "copyright" or the copyright symbol, the date of publication, and/or the name of the copyright owner.) However, it is also important that they are large enough to be of use and not poor quality. (This usually means a scan of an original document, not a picture taken with a camera and not a reproduction of a photocopy.) One helpful tip I will add: I have discovered when it comes to US Army Air Force aircraft that the 3-views are almost always found not in the pilot's flight operating instructions, but instead the erection and maintenance manual.
The other purpose is to inform everyone that these drawings exist and are free to use. For a complete collection, including examples others have uploaded, check out the
aircraft 3-views category. In addition, although not necessarily limited to them, the
line drawings of aircraft and
silhouette drawings of aircraft categories have many 3-views. So, as before...
Please enjoy!