[bearoutwest]

Hi Jukka,

Do you mean books other than the Scale & Detail and the Squadron Signal type technical development works?

Not sure there's that much in the way which separates techie stuff from squadron history.
- Andrew Hendrie's "Flying Cats", has Chapter 1 titles "The Machine" on the pre-service development, and the other 19 chapters are a mixture of new version introduction and service histories.
- Roscoe Creed's "PBY, The Catalina Flying Boat" has chapters 1-5 (pp 4-63) on pre-war military and commercial development. Chapters 6-18 covers service history and post-war.
- William Wagner's "Reuben Fleet and the Story of Consolidated Aircraft" does a creditable coverage of the flying boats preceding the PBY, and also the decision making leading to and the development of the PBY prototype. It is interspersed in with the general history of Consolidated - and also covers the Liberator and the Coronado along the way. (Surprisingly good, but not PBY specific.)

If you had to buy only one book with best coverage of technical development - then perhaps Roscoe Creed's book would be my preference (but then I like techie plus history), with Wagner's as a close second.

...geoff