Page 157 - Demo

157%u00196%u0006%u0001%u001a%u0007#%u000c%u0006%u0004%u0015%&%(9%u0016%u0006 %u00139%u0006 %u0016*%u0017%u0006 *%u0015%-%u0006 %u0001%u0017%u0015&*ffl%u0006 %u001a%u0013+4%u0014%u0017%u0006 /%u0017 by William Green. Aerospace Master Books; 2010. %u00a360. William Green was one of the most authoritative and prolific aviation writers of the 1960s and %u201870s with a string of editorships and titles to his credit. Of these, many would regard his quite remarkable Warplanes of the Third Reich as his major achievement. As its title indicates, it described, in considerable detail, every combat aircraft flown by Germany between 1933 and 1945, including those which failed to progress beyond the prototype stage. There were general arrangement drawings of each type, and of every major variant, and the 672 A4 pages were lavishly illustrated with photographs, tone drawings and cutaways. In 1970, this book was quite astonishing and it really did appear to merit that much overused adjective %u2013 %u2018definitive%u2019. Sadly, William Green passed away in January 2010 but, a few month later the first of, eventually, three volumes of a revised edition of his master work was published. Volume One alone runs to 508 pages, which suggests that the original must have been deeply flawed, but that is not the case. While Green is still credited as the author, the change in the title indicates that the net has been spread wider. This reflects the fact that a number of other writers have made contributions so that the book, with its expanded scope, now embraces any aeroplane that wore a Hakenkreuz, notably the trainers that were previously excluded. So in Vol 1, which covers manufacturers between A and F, we have, in addition to the home grown Arados, Dorniers and Focke8Wulfs, pictures of captured aeroplanes like the B817, B824, Blenheim and Beaufighter, along with the French Breguet 521 and Dewoitine 520 and sundry Italian CANTs and Fiats, all sporting swastikas. All of the original general arrangement drawings have been reproduced and there are even more cutaways and tone drawings, some of the latter now in colour. And all of this has been printed on coated paper. So what about that %u2018definitive%u2019? Was it misplaced in 1970? No. Apart from the additional content, and thus extra pages, arising from the new catch8all title, the original text has been reproduced pretty much verbatim %u2013 so Green really did get it right forty years ago. That