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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 1402.PDF
FLIGHT, 14 May 1954 621 THE AERONAUTICAL BOOKSHELF "Tall Timber Pilots," by Dale White and Larry Florek. The Viking Press Inc., 18 East 48th St., New York 17, U.S.A. Illustrated. Price $3.50. M ANY people will never have heard of the Johnson Flying Service of Missoula, Montana, because it is not the kind of airline that fills the headlines. Its aircraft include such veteran workhorses as Travelairs and Ford Trimotors, because these machines can get in and out of impossibly small clearings in me dense forests, and survive fierce air currents in the ravines and passes of the treacherous Bitter Root Mountains. But look at its record: regular forest fire patrols as early as 1926; free- fall dropping of supplies, including two 1,600ft metal cables, to a goldmine high in the snowbound Cascades; air delivery of dis mantled look-out houses; air photography of forest fire trails; air ambulance sorties; and all before 1930. Then, as the forest protection service grew, came transport of fire-fighting teams; delivery of hot meals to them; forest pest control, air-seeding; game inventories; haylifts to snowbound animals; and, finally, the formation of the spectacular, efficient "smoke-jumping" organization, which laid the groundwork for America's World War II parachute brigades. It is a glorious story—told simply, but packed with more good, honest thrills and terror than any Hollywood epic. It is a book that should be read by all who believe that aviation is concerned only with "death and dividends." "Military Aircraft Recognition 1954," and "Civil Aircraft Recognition 1954," both by John W. R. Taylor and published in the "ABC" series by Ian Allen, Ltd., Craven House, Hampton Court, Surrey. Illustrated. Price 2s 6d each volume. T HESE neat litde booklets have now settled down to enjoy a firm, and expanding, market. Both have been largely revised, as in previous years, and remain excellent value. On each of some 60 pages appears a three-view silhouette, data, notes and a care fully selected photograph of an important type of aircraft; in addition, numerous less-important types are dealt with at the back of the book. Accuracy and presentation remain good. "Skis Against the Atom" by Captain Knut Haukelid. William Kimber and Co., Ltd., 46 Wilton Place, London S.W.I. Illus trated. Price 15s. T HOSE who saw the documentary film of Operation Swallow will recall how the author of this book was parachuted into Norway with a small party of fellow-Norwegians, to blow up the heavy-water plant at Vemork and so hamper Germany's development of the atomic bomb. But, excellent though it was, the film must take second place to Captain Haukelid's own account of the operation in this book. The task called for supreme courage, for the Germans had already executed the luckless survivors of a British glider-borne force sent to blow up the plant, and they obviously expected further sabotage attempts. But courage would not have been sufficient by itself; the final assault on the works demanded also stamina, skill and determination to overcome almost insuper able natural and man-made obstacles. Yet, not only did Captain Haukelid and his men put the plant out of action in 1943; twelve months later they also boarded the ferry steamer carrying the entire German stock of heavy water, laid explosive charges and blew it up in mid-fjord. Their efforts, as much as anyone else's, ensured that the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima and not over London. "The Bridges at Toko-Ri," by James A. Michener. Martin Seeker and Warburg, 7 John Street, London, W.C.I. Price 7s 6d. T HIS novel about the activities in Korea of a squadron of Banshee fighter-bombers from a U.S. aircraft carrier has found little favour with reviewers in Britain. This fact not withstanding, no otiier book has given a better overall picture of life aboard a carrier in action, or of the heroism and sacrifice behind the uninspiring statistics of combat results in Korea. Mr. Michener's English is not the sort one reads in Hansard; and characters like "Beer Barrel," the deck landing officer, or Mike Forney, the helicopter pilot, are not perhaps the sort of men one meets in the Royal Navy. But this is not a story of the Royal Navy, and one has only to read Admiral Dan Gallery's joyous book Clear the Decks to realize that the sort of things described in The Bridges at Toko-Ri could easily be true of the U.S. Navy. In fact, the whole story rings true—which is not surprising, as its author went to sea with a U.S. task force in Korean waters to get material for it. Technically, it is incredibly good, for Mr. Michener is a shrewd observer of aircraft, operational techniques and men. Well-deserved tribute is paid to the pilots of Harvard "Mosquito" target-markers, whose activities gave new meaning to the words "close support" of ground forces; to the crews of rescue helicopters whose deeds have never before been publicized; and to the pilots of the Banshees, whose job involved destroying so many real bridges as heavily defended as the mythical ones at Toko-Ri. "Speeding into Space," by Marie Neurath. Max Parrish and Co., Ltd., 55 Queen Anne Street, London W.l. Illustrated. Price 6s (boards) or 7s 6d (cloth). '"PHIS is by no means "just another space book." It is •*• the latest of Max Parrish's famous series of picture books for children in which bold, imaginative colour drawings are used to put over a technical subject in a way that even parents can understand. Without going into great detail, it explains such things as escape velocity, step rockets, space stations and weightlessness— accuracy being guaranteed by the fact that the whole book was vetted before publication by Kenneth Gatland of the British Interplanetary Society, author of Space Travel (Allan Wingate, 10s 6d) and Development of the Guided Missile (Iliffe, 10s 6d). "Mechanical Testing of Metallic Materials," by R. A. Beau mont, A.M.I.Mech.E., A.F.R.Ae.S. Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., London, W.C.2. Illustrated. Price 25s. '""THIS is the third edition of a very well known work. All the *• standard mechanical tests are described,and details aregivenof a wide range of test equipment, much of which is new since the last edition appeared, ten years ago. For obvious reasons, there is very much increased emphasis on low- and high-temperature creep testing, and the chapter dealing with proof stress determina tion has also been revised and enlarged. " 'The Aeroplane' Directory of British Aviation 1954 (Incor porating Who's Who in British Aviation"). Temple Press, Ltd., Bowling Green Lane, London, E.C.I. Price 21s. OWING each year in size and scope, this standard work of aviation reference now appears with further refinements to facilitate consultation. The various sections dealing with, inter alia, air forces, ministries, airlines, flying clubs, airfields and the industry, together with a 1,600-name who's who, are now iden tified by neat plastic tags projecting from the relevant page-edges. "Rocket Propulsion, Second Edition", by Eric Burgess, F.R.A.S. Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 37 Essex Street, London, W.C.2. Illustrated. Price 21s. W HEN the first edition of this work appeared, two years ago, it was widely hailed as the perfect bridge between somewhat abstruse scientific reports and highly-coloured accounts written by laymen for laymen. Mr. Burgess's book is also written for the layman, but this did not deter him from backing up bis documentary accounts with valuable data tables and calculations. In this second edition, much of the historical deadwood has been lopped off and replaced by the latest reports which can be pub lished; many of the excellent photographs are also new, and the book has generally been enlarged. We can whole-heartedly recommend it. "Luftfahrt-Worterbuch" (German-English and English-Ger man Aviation Dictionary), by Roderich Cescotti. Published by Harms Reich Verlag, Munich 23. Price in Great Britain, 28s (ob tainable through Bailey Bros, and Swinfen, Ltd., 46 St. Giles's High Street, London W.C.2). V^E have seen nearly a dozen German/English aviation dic- " tionariesof one sort or another, and have no hesitation in hailing this little volume as standing out head and shoulders above all the others. Cescotti has clearly put immense labour into its compilation, and his renderings are nearly faultless; furthermore, the book is happily free from the spate of archaic ballooning terms so frequently found in aeronautical dictionaries of all kinds; this is a 1954 book in all senses of the word. It is, perhaps, hardly surprising that it might be more accurate to describe Cescotti's work as a "German-American" dictionary, for nearly all the English spoken in Munich is today American. But this scarcely affects the usefulness of the dictionary in this country. Also included are lists of abbreviations, a vocabulary of G.C.A. terms as applied to a typical approach and an exhaustive series of con version tables. The little volume is superbly produced, and is bound between bright-blue covers of washable pigskin. "The Flying Years," by Lamont Buchanan. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 210 Madison Avenue, New York. Illustrated. Price $5. HTHIS "pictorial history of man's conquest of the air" is an -*- attractive book, containing 275 first-class illustrations, few of them the usual hackneyed views of famous aircraft or incidents. Unfortunately, Mr. Buchanan's text is not as good as the pictures, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that his previous
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