The Secret Horsepower Race, Book Info.

[MW Giles]

An excellent book in many respects, it gives insights that I would not get anywhere else. I would heartily recommend it.

The text jumps around too much for my taste. One minute you are reading about Schneider trophy race engines, then suddenly something about Bristols and then back to Schneider for no apparent reason than they all happened about the same time.

I have a feeling that it is essentially a history of the Merlin and its German competitors, with significant asides for the other makers and their engines, but the Merlin is very much the yardstick he judges everything else against

I wanted more though.

Italy gets a few mentions but nothing really concrete
France - not really mentioned at all
USA - only two engines discussed P&W R-2800 and Allison V-1710

Would have liked discussions about other makers - Wright not really looked at, P&W R-1830 from Wildcat not covered. Implementation differences in Thunderbolt, Corsair and Hellcat of R-2800 would have been interesting

UK - RR Griffon - disappointing coverage
Bristol Hercules - definitely wanted more (I know it was not a fighter engine, but it was a successful sleeve valve engine of similar power to the Merlin)

More of the engines in development as the war ended that went on to bigger and better things afterwards.

I do not know enough to comment on the German coverage, though it appeared to be quite good

Lots of lovely graphs from original reports, but reproduced so small that I need a magnifying glass to see what they actually say

Probably room for a second edition