[John Vasco]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

Well, I have a few recommendations. First, try to get a look at "Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War". I admit, neither of the two authors are naval architects. Anyway, this book has everything, design background, tech details and operational use. Tech details include stuff like engine room fan capacity, material specs etc. Performance data is based on trial data, not gossip (they include date of trials, exact displacement of the ship etc). Be warned, this book is a large formattome with some 900 pages.
If this kind of subject captures your interest, all well and good. But, I don't think you should hold it up as some kind of benchmark for aviation authors to aspire to. You might as well ask us to put our writing on a par with Shakespeare, as his writing is considered by many to be the best.

Second recommendation is the Anatomy of the Ship series. Pick e.g. John Roberts´ volume on the HMS Dreadnought. In this book, you can find some 30 pages of machinery related drawings (from general mach room layout to sectioned drawings of pumps) alone.
'30 pages of machinery related drawings' says it all. I'm not into ships. That would deter me even more.

You wrote that the pilots didn´t give much thought to the tech stuff. Well, how much were they interested in the exact tone of their green paint or whether the swastika was 625 mm or 620 mm wide? Yet, books about that subject fill the shelves (I include pictorials here if the captions´ main theme is camo and markings).
You take a simple observation of pilot's views on their aircraft and turn it towards camouflage and markings. I don't follow your line of reasoning.

After checking these two, you cannot resist agreeing with me that aviation authors have extremely lot to learn from their naval colleagues.

I can resist agreeing with you, because I don't agree with you. Aviation authors do not have anything to learn from their naval colleagues. You need to understand that errors occur in every book that has ever been written on military matters. You should also realise that aviation publishers do not subscribe to the fact that every book has to be a technical monolith. Aviation books are targeted at different audiences. These different audiences seek different levels of content. Therefore, some books are high on technical content. Others, such as unit histories, thrust more towards missions and personalities. Others again focus more on camouflage and markings and aircraft types. HMS Dreadnought is HMS Dreadnought, period. The Bf 109, or Bf 110, or Me 262 are (without wishing to be hit for stating the obvious) different animals altogether, with all of their various sub-variants, and the differing approaches as to how they are presented in print. You need to acknowledge that, Jukka, before you start levelling comments or criticism towards Luftwaffe books in print. Constructive criticism is healthy, and necessary, for vigorous debate; destructive criticism serves no purpose whatsoever. I believe I have been reasonable in all I have stated in this post. Perhaps some authors who have remained silent on this topic thus far may agree with some of the points I have made.

John Vasco