Warbird Information Exchange

From Aero-News.net:

German World War II Aircraft Manuals On CD
Luftfahrt-Archiv Hafner Offers New CDs For Christmas

Udo Hafner of Luftfahrt-Archiv Hafner notified us by email of
his firm's latest offerings. "Luftfahrt-Archiv" means
"Flight-Archive" and that's exactly what the Hafner family
maintains, an archive of old, mostly World War II, German aircraft
manuals, reprinted in high quality on decent, durable paper, unlike
the grey, flimsy wartime stuff that collectors take extreme
precautions in handling.

These are not the cheesy, crummy reprints that you might have
seen. Luftfahrt-Archiv Hafner offers a premium product, as the
photos of my hardbound Me163 maintenance manual show. And they
offer the obscure, technically detailed references that the warbird
restorer or rebuilder needs -- not to mention, they're a wonderful
gift for a modeler or enthusiast.

Their latest offering, "Operation Christmas 05" is a series of
comprehensive "Compendiums" of information on specific types --
this is a limited-time offering that must be ordered by December
28. The types represented are good ones: Bf 109E, Fieseler Fi 156
Storch, FW 190A, Me 262A (with Jumo 004), and one for the gearheads
among you, the Daimler-Benz DB 601/605 engines. (These were the
fascinating 30-degree inverted V-12s that powered the Bf 109s and
many other German warplanes).

Because Udo's message was in German, and even though I read it
well, I'm not a native speaker, I wrote to make absolutely sure
that this was a limited-time offer, which he confirmed. "The
CDs of Operation Christmas 05 will no longer be offered
after the 28.. It's only a Christmas offer." After that the
individual documents in the Compendiums will only be
available on individual CDs again, as on the usual price list.

The Compendiums come on CD and range from 950 pages of material
(the DB 601/5 Compendium) to a staggering 4,300 pages (the FW 190A
Compendium). The documents are .pdf files, so the CDs work equally
well on PC, Mac and Unix/Linux -- and supposedly, on systems I
haven't even tried, like Palm. (Hmmm... imagine having the
maintenance manuals for a FW190 on a Palm handheld... I gotta try
this).

In addition to the limited-time information Compendiums, Hafner
also announced the addition of a number of armament handbooks to
the product line. The Armament Handbooks cover on-board weapons
from the 7.92mm MG 15 through all significant German aircraft guns
to the various 30mm weapons like the MK 108. There's also one
specifically on gun mounts.

Naturally, all these documents are reproduced from originals, so
some pages may be beaten up or poorly reproduced, and photographs
may have lost some definition. I have not found that on the Hafner
document that I acquired, but bear in mind it might
happen.

We have always corresponded with Udo in German, but his latest
message came with a partial English translation, which I interpret
as an invitation for orders from the USA and the rest of the
Anglosphere. He advises me he may use translation software (which
choked on "Hognose" -- sorry about that) so give him a hand: keep
your English clear and simple and avoid idioms and flowery
language.

All items are priced in Euros and are net of shipping, so in
dollars your actual cost will probably be about double the price
stated on the website.
FMI: www.luftfahrt-archiv-hafner.de