Warbird Information Exchange

I would really like to start building my own "Warbird Library."
What books are your favorites and/or would you recommend?

I'm really interested as to how some of you know the individual histories of so many aircraft. For example, are there books that will list the histories of all P-51s or Corsairs and show with which fighter groups they served? Or did you just do lots of research yourself?

Thanks!

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-Bill
B-17E 41-2595 "Desert Rat" Restoration Team

I would suggest just buying everything in the Air Force Museum book store..

But seriously, we all have our own specific interests, and there are tons of great books out there. Squadron's "Aircraft In Action" series are (mostly) still in print and widely available, along the Osprey series. The Squadron books tend to focus on aircraft types and their development histories, while the Osprey titles focus more on pilots and units that flew them.


SN

Another series for general reference are the Putnam Aeronautical Books, originally published in Great Britain and later by the Smithsonian and the US Naval Institute. An example is United States Military Aircraft since 1909 by Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers. I'm not sure of the current status of all of the volumes but they are a good general reference, and there are titles that cover some relatively rare subjects, such as Parnall Aircraft since 1914 by Kenneth E. Wixey.

Randy

the latter.... my P-51 knowledge is an ever-growing database incorporating information from hundreds of books, magazines, historical ops documents, websites, and of course from thousands of photographs..... collected over the last 20 years or so...

Martin

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

The Profiles series of pamhlets from England have color profiles and detailed series an use information.

Barrett Tillman has written several excellent books on Naval aircraft.

Martin Bowman and Roger Freeman with some others have a series of At War books about the great ww2 craft, for example, B-17 at War.

The old Ballantine Weapons paperback books series can be found in used book stores or on E-Bay.

Good luck with your library.

I've got a question,

What would you say are the best reference books for the ALSIB route. Basically I'm looking for some good reading about the Lend-Lease between the US and Russia. I'm most interested in the Lend-Lease airplanes. As well, I'm curious about the airplanes after the Russian pilots picked them up in Fairbanks. Most of the information available seems to only focus on the US pilots flying up to Fairbanks, but information seems harder to find when the planes switch hands to the Russians.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,

David

As you decide on books, I recommend that you first check bibliofind.com, bookfinder.com, and abebooks.com for excellent deals on used, out-of-print (and sometimes new!) books. The dealers who use these sites to sell books are usually actual, real, brick and mortar dealers who have a reputation to uphold. Though used, pretty much every book I've gotten in recent years is in excellent condition. The condition of the books, BTW, are usually detailed on the book's listing.

eBay is another source for deals, but it's "buyer beware"!

Wade

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Website: http://www.wademeyersart.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Wade.Meyers.Studios

Excellent source for information about Lend Lease to the Soviet Union is Red Stars 4: Lend Lease Aircraft in Russia. The best and most complete on the subject as far as I'm concerned. It's a Finnish publisher and may be hard to find in the U.S. Authors are Carl-Fredrik Geust and Gennadiy Petrov. I got mine from MAL Hobby Shop (http://www.malhobby.com) in 2002; don't know if they still have it. Many, many photos and detailed statistics about deliveries, etc. Excellent reference source.

With reference to reference books, I'd take a book with some definitive information over a book with pretty color pictures and general captions any day. Books I use a lot:

"U.S. Military Aircraft Designations and Serials Since 1909" by John Andrade (except for a few problems with the B-25 serial listing)

"The B-17 Flying Fortress Story" by Roger Freeman and David Osborne

Anything from the Freeman "Mighty Eighth" series

Anything by Peter M. Bowers, including "Fortress in the Sky" and "Buzz Numbers" by Bowers and Dave Menard

Anything by William T. Larkins

"B-17 Nose Art Directory" by Wallace Foreman

Any of the aforementioned Putnam Series (i.e. "Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913" by Rene Francillon) republished by the Naval Institute Press

"Warbirds Worldwide Directory" by John Chapman and Geoff Goodall

Anything from Dan Hagedorn including "Foreign Invaders" by Hadedorn and Leif Hellstrom.

All serious students of aviation history and good, reliable sources.

Since aerovin (Scott) didn't mention them himself, he has several excellent books on civilianized bomber types (B-17, B-25, A-26, and A-20) with more info then I've seen anywhere else. I've got these in my collection, visit: http://aerovintage.com/catalog.htm

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Roger Cain
www.sfahistory.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stearman/


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