Favorite Aircraft History Books?

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Well this Classic author has a social science background (aviation design is Arthur Bentley's field) but since the topic heading here is HISTORY books, not engineering monographs, that may not be such a handicap as Jukka implies.

I write books centring on operations (i.e. the reason engineers built all those aircraft in the first place) and the people who flew them. In my view that is no less valid an activity than treatises on technical development or indeed grand strategy, neither of which happens to be my thing.

Well, your books do not claim to be aircraft tech books. But when title is like "The Hawker Hurricane", it certainly requires competent engineering description.

Let´s consider an example from naval books. Lacroix&Wells book "Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War" describe the development background, operations and the design to the minutest detail down to boiler room fan diameter data. Yet we may have "German Aircraft of WW Two" (Putnam). Comparable title to the L&W, but completely different. That Putnam has very superficial info on design background, tech details etc. The hard truth is that aircraft book authors have a great deal to learn from their naval colleagues.