[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Fellow Luftwaffe Researchers,

It's late Sunday afternoon and I'm enjoying reading the give and take of this debate. My leaning, since I'm growing more into one of those rivet counters (ugh!!), is to support Jukka in his claim that aviation writers could learn from their naval brethren.

I wonder if part of the difference is in terms of availability of detailed plans. Is it possible that there is an abundance of detailed ship plans ripe for the plucking, whereas detailed plans of Luftwaffe aircraft may be difficult to come by? I can certainly say that the latter is true for the Me 262.

If you pick up the numerous books published on the Me 262 that actually present technical details, they utilize the same set of drawings that appeared in the October 1945 issue of Aviation, these actually being drawn from photos of the captured Me 262 T-2-711. You'll have books like Aero Detail 9, which present walkaround photos, but these are only "skin deep", as opposed to what I presume are detailed internal plans in the naval books. Only rarely will an aviation book get under the skin.

So, perhaps duplicating in aircraft books the detail seen in naval books might possibly be due to a lack of availability.

Comments??

Regards,
Richard