Reviews in English

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  • The Wright Brothers

    The Wright Brothers
    David McCullough
    Simon & Schuster; Book Club Edition edition
    2015
    English
    X X X X X
    336 pg.
    ISBN-10: 1476728747 ISBN-13: 978-1476728742
    Review written by: Pedro Blas Gonzalez

                    Since the invention of electrical power, during the Second Industrial Revolution – the period from 1870 to the start of World War I – no invention has had a greater impact on travel and commerce as the airplane.  In 2016 U.S.-serving airlines flew over 928 domestic and international passengers. It is estimated that the […]

  • The AVRO Type 698 VULCAN: Design and Development

    The AVRO Type 698 VULCAN: Design and Development
    David W. Fildes
    Pen & Sword Books
    2017
    English
    X X X X X
    487 pg.
    978 1 47388 667 4
    Review written by: Max Heldring

    Many books are written about the history of the big 3 V-Bombers of the RAF  namely the Handley Page Victor, Vickers Valiant and the Avro Vulcan. But the most iconic of the three is the Avro Vulcan because of its appearance and flight characteristics. 95 Planes were built in different executions and served with the […]

  • Best Food Forward

    Best Food Forward
    Colin Hodgkinson
    Frontline Books
    2017
    English
    X X X X X
    223 pg.
    978 1 47389 762 5
    Review written by: Max Heldring

    From the stories of WW2 during the Battle of Britain the name of Douglas Bader is very well known as the ace without legs. He lost his legs in a prewar flight accident and with a lot of perseverance he became a famous fighter pilot. But there is another fighter pilot who flew without legs […]

  • The B-58 Blunder: How the U.S. Abandoned its Best Strategic Bomber

    The B-58 Blunder: How the U.S. Abandoned its Best Strategic Bomber
    Colonel George Holt, Jr.
    George Holt Jr.
    2015
    English
    X X X X X
    140 pg.
    ISBN-10: 0692478817 ISBN-13: 978-0692478813
    Review written by: Pedro Blas Gonzalez

    I first saw a picture of the Convair B-58 Hustler in C.B. Colby’s 1966 book Jets of the World: New Fighters, Bombers and Transports. I discovered the book in the library of Buena Vista Elementary school. The year was 1972 and I was in the second grade. As best as I recall, the library had […]

  • When the Navy Took to the Air: The Experimental Seaplane Stations of the Royal Naval Air Service

    When the Navy Took to the Air: The Experimental Seaplane Stations of the Royal Naval Air Service
    Philip MacDougall
    Fonthill Media
    2017
    English
    X X X X X
    176 pg.
    ISBN-10: 1781555729 ISBN-13: 978-1781555729
    Review written by: Max Heldring

    The subtitle of this book(let) doesn’t do justice to the content: each thinkable form of aviation activity done by the Royal Navy from 1909 is mentioned. Thus also the use of ‘land’- planes and with some success, airships. What comes across very strong to me is that the Navy management, especially in the early beginning, informed […]

  • Station 115 Shipdham

    Station 115 Shipdham
    Peter W. Bodle Fraes
    Fonthill Media Limited
    2017
    English
    X X X X X
    176 pg.
    978 1 78155 495 1
    Review written by: Max Heldring

    Station 115 is the story of an U.S.A.A.F. base in Norfolk U.K. in the second world war. Not a story about heroes in the skies but about the people that kept the planes flying and the organisation behind it running. It was a type A airfield that housed the 44th Bombardment Group flying the Liberator B-24 […]

  • Orville Wright: How We Invented the Airplane

    Orville Wright: How We Invented the Airplane
    Orville Wright (edited by Fred C. Kelly)
    Dover Publications Inc.
    1988
    English
    X X X X X
    96 pg.
    ISBN10 0486256626 ISBN13 9780486256627
    Review written by: Pedro Blas Gonzalez

    Huffman Prairie is an isolated, quiet place eight miles outside of Dayton, Ohio. The field takes its name from a banker named Torrance Huffman who owned the cow pasture at the time the Wright brothers flew the Wright Flyer III, the aircraft that proved that controlled flight was possible. The field is vast. Wilbur and […]

  • Flying Conquistadors

    Flying Conquistadors
    Michael Scott Bertrand
    North Loop Books
    2017
    English
    X X X X X
    468 pg.
    ISBN-10: 1635053765 ISBN-13: 978-1635053760
    Review written by: Max Heldring

    Flying Conquistadors! …The adventures of Oliver Wheelock in this reading work of fiction are situated in the beginning of the 1930’s, the years in which aviation started to become professional. Oliver starts his working career as a youngster with Pan American working from an airport in the south of Florida in the first year of […]

  • African MiGs Volume 1 and 2

    African MiGs Volume 1 and 2
    Tom Cooper and Peter Weinert, with Fabian Hinz and Mark Lepko
    Harpia Publishing L.L.C.
    2010
    English
    X X X X X
    256 pg.
    978-0-9825539-8-5
    Review written by: Rene Verjans

    Special books they are these 2 volumes about a large group of countries in the continent Africa and then especially in –what the writers call- the ‘Sub-Sahara’. Not that I normally am so interested in the air forces of African counties, but I was simply curious about these air forces of which you seldom hear, because […]

  • Flight: 100 Years of Aviation

    Flight: 100 Years of Aviation
    R. G. Grant
    DK Publishing
    2009
    English
    X X X X X
    B00J5SZF8A/ B014S40UQM
    Review written by: Pedro Blas Gonzalez

    The pilot slowly brings the aircraft to the beginning of the runway. I look around the cabin and notice many passengers asleep. They have been sleeping since shortly after boarding. In this regard, I am of one mind with the stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, when the venerable ancient Greek thinker writes, “Thus to a man […]