Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb collection of technical information and graphics!, 12 Jan 2001
By A Customer
In "Secret Aircraft Designs of the Third Reich" talented aicraft-fan David Myhra gives the reader superb collection of pictures, drawings, technical data and wonderful photos of beautifully modelled scale copies of than of proposed German aircraft projects. The total number of German projects is in excess of 350. Book is divided by aircraft developers of Germany and big part of them stays pretty inknown to the modern reader. Blohm und Voss tops the list with over 200 project designs. Author also describes the people who created these time-breaking machines. It shows the problems which stopped Germany of 3rd re-equipping of its Air Forces during one war - task which was not outperformed neither by Soviet Union nor by UK/US. Junkers words are superb heading for theis book: "ideas for advanced aircraft projects were about as cheap as blueberries. To an idea must be added materials, resources, and time." And time is the only resourse which cant be bought and germany's enemies were really tough salesmen and the war in Europe ended in May 1945. Book is superb and is a "must-have" for any fan of the aircrafts. Plus - the book itself is of perfect quality. Come and get it right now!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost perfect, 24 Feb 2009
Well, i have mixed feelings about this book. On one side, the book is extremely well researched, full of interesting information about all the stages of development of aircraft in the major builders of the period in Germany, as well as lots of information on the designers, their influences, background, technical contributions. It then proceeds to analyze each project individually, with exausting detail, and for this alone, the book is worth 10 stars. The amount of information, period photos, drawings of the period, wind tunnel models, mockups, etc... is absolutely impressive.
My main problem, and as someone that works in the publishing industry, is a bit of nitpicking, but i have to mention it - there are some line drawings in this book, lots of them, the usual 3 views of the projects, however, you have the impression that the book author(s) were reaching some sort of deadline, or were pressured by the publisher into releasing the book, because they're low resolution images, and they're pixelated.
It's a shame, the book covers an fascinating topic, that not many books cover, at least not with this detail, and if only a bit more of work was added to the artwork, like adding some simple side color profiles of what the airplanes would look like in operations in 1946 for instance, and adding proper 3 view line drawings, vectorized, not pixelated low resolution versions, then i would give this book 5 stars.
As it is however, the amount of information and research done, on this fascinating topic, are more than enough to compensate for these relatively minor problems.
I hope the publishers consider a 2nd edition that corrects some of these problems. Nevertheless, everything considered, i have to give it 4 stars, it's still an impressive and worthwhile volume. Don't let this nitpicking put you down - if you're interested in the subject, just buy it, but if you expect color profiles, camouflage schemes, high resolution line drawings, then this just isn't the book for you.
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