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PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:39 pm 
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Working on the aircraft 3-views project led to another case of "I got tired of keeping track of stuff". So to follow on previous threads (1, 2) here's a list of digital aircraft manual sources:

Providers (Name - Owner - Location - Date Established - Collection Size)

A couple notes:
  • A special mention goes to Thomson's Aviation Library which, while only dealing in physical manuals, claims to have a collection of over 300,000 manuals. Newport Aeronautical and Essco Aircraft (see above) are somewhat similar, in that they are older companies that predate the Internet and, as a result, have large collections of physical manuals. However, unlike the former, they both provide manuals in digital format now.
  • Note that there are companies such as ARC, ATP and Web Manuals are not included here as they offer commercial style services, are focused on more modern aircraft, and/or provide platforms/management systems instead of individual manuals.

If anyone has any additions, please feel free to suggest them.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 5:07 am 
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I always find some good stuff in here.
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/topics/technical.56/

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:11 am 
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Ron Handgraaf has a large collection in his Ebay shop as well: https://www.ebay.com/str/ronsaviationshop. I'm not sure he ships everywhere though. He used to have a website with a lot of downloadable stuff but moved to Ebay only at some point.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 5:14 pm 
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Spitty wrote:
I always find some good stuff in here.
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/topics/technical.56/

I actually considered mentioning similar, thread-based collections in the original post, but in the end I decided to focus on only retailers. However, you're right these type of sources are worth mentioning. There are some similar threads on the War Thunder forums (1, 2, 3), but they're more likely to be simply aggregations of materials hosted on other websites than individuals uploading their own. There's also a "relic hunter" named Stephen Taylor who has provided a bunch on a page on his website.

One other category of source that I didn't mention was aircraft clubs or enthusiast websites. For example, there are collections of manuals for the A-26, B-17, Beech 18, Bf 109, Culver Cadet, Navion (1, 2), RC-3 on various websites. There are also a few memorabilia/collector businesses, such as Aero Antique or Aviation Shoppe, that have provided a few manuals gratis as a side to their main business.

Finally, while a bit off topic, the Federal Aviation Administration has an Aviation Handbooks & Manuals page. There's also an individual on reddit who has created a collection of aviation maintenance documents.

Archer wrote:
Ron Handgraaf has a large collection in his Ebay shop as well: https://www.ebay.com/str/ronsaviationshop. I'm not sure he ships everywhere though. He used to have a website with a lot of downloadable stuff but moved to Ebay only at some point.

I actually came across another eBay seller, pegasus-rising, as well today.

Providers (Name - Owner - Location - Date Established - Collection Size)
  • ronsaviationshop (eBay) - Ron Handgraaf - Netherlands - 23 February 2007 - 889 items
  • pegasus-rising (eBay) - Unknown - United Kingdom - 4 August 2004 - 198 items

Thanks to both you guys for the suggestions!

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 06, 2022 7:45 pm 
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Another pair of sources I came across the other day, one of which is defunct:

Providers (Name - Owner - Location - Date Established - Collection Size)

While it may seem like it is not particularly useful to list defunct sellers, it is still worthwhile. Due to the fact that manuals can be easily copied and transferred once digitized, even though the source may be gone much of their work is often still around.

On that note, the reproduction of military aircraft manuals can be particularly contentious. Although the manuals are in the public domain by virtue of the fact that they were published by the U.S. government (the argument being that because the government belongs to its people, by extension anything it produces does as well), and therefore there are no legal penalties for reselling someone's scans, it is often considered poor etiquette to do so. Digitization is no easy task - it requires significant effort in terms of both money and time. In fact, reselling scans can be doubly injurious because there is essentially zero cost on the part of the second individual - they have no investment to offset - so they can resell the manuals for substantially lower prices. This dilutes the market and results in the original scanner being either forced to sell their scans at unsustainably low prices or face a loss of sales. On a more philosophical level, resellers rarely credit the original source. So, even in cases where the original digitizer does not seek financial compensation for their effort, reuse without permission is, at a minimum, disrespectful.

For these reasons, there is at least one organization that is very hesitant to use copies that are anything but the files they have created themselves. This is where the utility of knowledge of defunct sellers comes in. When said organization does use manuals that have been scanned by an outside source, they are careful to vet any incoming manuals and only elect to use them when they have exhausted any possibility of discovering the original source through a reasonable search.

Now, there are ways of combatting unauthorized reproduction such as watermarks, password protection, image tiling, and right click protection. These can be helpful in preventing inadvertent use of other individuals material. However, none are completely effective. As long as an image appears on a computer screen, there is some way to copy it. Moreover, some of these methods - watermarking in particular - introduce elements that compromise the integrity of the original image.

Finally, while all of the above has been in reference to private individuals or for-profit businesses, it is worth noting that museums often face very similar situations. For example, museums, particularly art museums, often undertake comparable provenance research on artifacts they acquire. (Ironically, one of the major motivators for this also a result of the Second World War. Large databases of artworks have been created to return looted art taken from families during the Holocaust.) Furthermore, while museums generally do not seek to make a profit, as alluded to in a post in the Martlet thread, there are costs involved in maintaining an archive. The fees that many institutions charge are used to pay not only for proper storage and upkeep, but also the work necessary to process each request.

EDIT (23-06-03): As an example, I recently purchased a few pages of a PQ-8 manual from Essco and realized that it is the same exact scan as the one offered on Avialogs website as it has identical notations and stamps. I don't know which acquired it from the other, but being aware of the connection can be useful if you want to know where the original paper copy can be found.

Also, a thread in the technical requests section of the WW2Aircraft.net forum has some relevant insight into opinions regarding copyright and password protection.

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Last edited by Noha307 on Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:34 pm 
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I recently had the opportunity to talk at length with Patrick Hibbard, who runs warbird-manuals (aka Warbirds and Trains) on eBay. He has very generously agreed to help with the aircraft 3-views project and during the conversation he relayed a bit about his collection. Mr. Hibbard has been collecting paper manuals for many years, usually purchasing them from eBay, and now has a significant archive. Over time, he has been slowly digitizing his collection and putting it up for sale to help offset the cost of his hobby. (On that note, all of the digital copies he has for sale come from scans he has made himself and are not taken from other sources.) However, he has only been able to scan a small portion of his collection thus far. Furthermore, he has many rare manuals that might not be found anywhere else and is knowledgeable about each of them. So, if you are looking for something and don't see it on his store, or you think your chosen aircraft is too obscure, he may actually still have it. (For example, of the 29 military aircraft I asked about, only 3 were available on his store. However, he had another 19 unscanned manuals in his collection.) Mr. Hibbard has also provided manuals to help with a number of restoration projects around the country, including the Hangar 13 project and Planes of Fame. Finally, I want to emphasize just how helpful he was. Despite being in the middle of a move – meaning that most of his collection being boxed up at the moment – his reply to my initial request came within a day and was, essentially, "is that all you need?"

EDIT (23-01-03): Mr. Hibbard has very kindly sent me a picture of a portion of his collection and granted me permission to post it here for reference:
Attachment:
Patrick Hibbard Manual Collection.png
Patrick Hibbard Manual Collection.png [ 1.27 MiB | Viewed 2023 times ]

Unfortunately, I had to shrink it a bit to be able to attach it and that rendered most of the text unreadable. However, according to the labels, subjects include the A-17, A-24, A-35, AT-6, B-17, B-24, B-25, B-29, BC-1, LB-30, P-39, P-47, P-59, P-80, P-84, and P-86 as well as gunsights, bombsights, instruments, and remote turret systems.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 4:58 pm 
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A few more additions:

Providers (Name - Owner - Location - Date Established - Collection Size)

Note that the eBay seller is not exclusively aircraft manuals. Furthermore, the other two sellers, while including some manuals, are more focused on other publications.

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Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Jan 14, 2024 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 8:31 pm 
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As I have worked on this list, as well as other projects like aircraft manufacturer logos and 3-view drawings, one issue I have frequently run into is who has the right to use the scans. I touched on it in a previous post, but it prevalent enough that I thought it was due a more substantial treatment. Therefore, please find an overview below.

This analysis is divided into two parts: First, a summary of the facts of copyright law in the United States and how it applies to aircraft manuals and, second, an analysis of the various arguments for and against charging for manuals.

Legal Situation
All U.S. federal government documents are public domain and, as the military an arm of the government, this applies to anything they produce as well. The argument for this is that, as a branch of the U.S. government, the U.S. military works on behalf of the American people. Furthermore, taxpayer dollars were indirectly used to fund the creation of the manuals. For both these reasons, they are, in essence "owned" by the public.

When it comes to non-military manuals while the situation is a bit different, many are still technically in the public domain. This is because any document published before 1977 with a defective copyright notice does not receive protection. What is a defective notice? It is a copyright notice that lacks one of three parts: a copyright logo or the word copyright, a date, or the name of the claimant. As I found in my work, the vast majority of works published by companies in the 1940s or earlier did not include the first of the required components and so are in the public domain. However, there is a caveat to this. One is that the document had to have been published. A precise definition of publication is hard to come by, but the standard interpretation is usually that it refers to being made available to the public at large. In the context of this discussion it would mean being used outside of the company. So, for example, an operator's manual would qualify, but a blueprint would not.

Now, while that addresses the issue of original copyright, what about scanning? Is a new copyright created when they are scanned? In short, no. Legally, according to Bridgeman v. Corel mere exact mechanical reproduction of a public domain work does not create a new copyright because, while it does take significant effort and skill, the process lacks originality.

The facts above, when taken together, results in a strange situation. Were it not for the manuals being in the public domain in the first place, anyone reproducing them would be committing copyright violations. However, the very same fact means that, for better or worse, they have no legal leg to stand on when it comes to other people reusing their scans. Some people attempt to claim their own copyright over scans of military manuals to prevent reproduction, but this claim is invalid and would therefore be unenforceable.

Lastly, please note that: 1) everything described above only applies to American documents and 2) I am not a lawyer.

Positions
The question now becomes: How do you balance the need for compensation for digitization efforts with the legal situation when it comes to public domain documents? Should you have to pay for them? There are arguments for both sides.

As alluded to in the previous section, these documents are the shared cultural heritage of all Americans. (One could argue that just as we restore and preserve warbirds to commemorate the sacrifices of our frontline airmen, they represent our struggle of the men and women behind the scenes to support them.) They belong to any one person as much as any other.

The diffusion of knowledge is one of the most admirable goals one can aspire to. To put it another way, the goal of a historian is to make more knowledge available to more people. I have chosen to make all of the digitization work I have performed available for free on our museum's Internet Archive account. However, I also recognize that I am privileged enough to be in a position to do so and not everyone has that opportunity.

At the same time, it takes large amounts of money, time, and effort to scan them. Some of the people behind these collections not only rely on the income from these collections for a portion of their livelihood or to offset the time cost in maintaining them, but have also spent significant sums money to acquire them. Alternatively, in the case of corporations, the income they make is necessary to justify their existence to leadership. When it comes to museums, proper storage materials are not cheap. Digitization does not replace physical copies and, as such, the need to care for the original materials does not end after the scanning is complete. This applies to digital collections as well. Constant care is necessary to ensure that, for example, data is transferred off of and out of old media formats before they are obsolete or that it is properly backed up in case of losses like file corruption. All of this of course takes proper knowledge and technical training and hiring an additional staff member with this skillset is not cheap. So charging for digital copies, despite the impression all of the high minded rhetoric the previous paragraphs might create, is by no means wrong and I do not necessarily blame anyone for doing so.

The one case I do object to is someone charging for scans that someone else has made available for free elsewhere. To be clear, I am not referring to two people independently scanning two separate but identical paper copies, but instead someone downloading a digital file of a manual that another person has digitized and then repackaging it for sale without their permission. In this case it is a purely a profit seeking motive, does not credit the hard work that the other person has done and deceives any purchasers by not stating there is a free copy available.

So, how does one deal with this conflict? One answer is to simply not use any materials without permission - regardless of copyright - unless public domain or an equivalent license (such as Creative Commons) is explicitly stated. I am aware of one organization that does not host manuals - even public domain examples - unless they personally scanned them or can sign an agreement with a donor. Furthermore, it is always good practice to provide credit and a link or reference to the source - even when the content is public domain. This is not only fair, but is also beneficial for other researchers. For example, where one manual came from there are likely more and someone looking for a different, but similar, manual would appreciate knowing where to look. Providing credit may also benefit the digitizer by providing more exposure and therefore driving more people to their store. It is really a win-win for everyone.

In conclusion, I hope this was an informative look at the rules surrounding digital copies of vintage aircraft manuals. I would say I have tried to be as even handed as possible and give weight to both sides, but in reality trying to force it was unnecessary as the situation is naturally far from black and white. Nevertheless, should anyone feel that I missed something or overly weighted a certain point of view I welcome any constructive criticism on the subject.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2023 3:30 pm 
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Based on how many times they appear in Google search results and their large catalog, Aircraft Reports seems to be one of the major providers of aircraft manuals online. However, their about page does not have much information about them. It states that they were established in either December 1997 or sometime in 1998, that they are registered in Richmond Hill, Ontario (although currently located in Europe) and are part of Sicuro Publishing Inc.

Therefore, I wanted to see if I could find out more so I searched the email address listed on their contact us page, "sicuropublishing@gmail.com". The results turned up an Allbiz page for an "Aircraft Blueprints Archive". The listing linked to a Facebook page which states its location as Markham, Ontario; its website as "aircraft-reports.com" and its email address as "sicuropublishing@gmail.com". Given that the page is up to date - the most recent post is March 3rd - it stands to reason that the contact information is correct. Therefore, Aircraft Blueprints Archives is run by the same company or individual as Aircraft Reports.

However, The website included on the Allbiz page is not Aircraft-Reports.com. It is instead "aircraft-computational.com" the website of a man named Robert Brian Weekley. Mr. Weekly is described on the about page as having "12 years expertise in aircraft assembly" while working for "[McD]onnell Douglas Canada and Bombardier Aerospace, DeHavilland". The website is very much a Web 1.0 design and the copyright reads "2002-2013", which would put it not too far off the stated establishment date of Aircraft Reports. Furthermore, at least one of the posts on the Aircraft Blueprints Archive Facebook page links to an Aircraft Reports page selling modern computer aided design versions of engineering drawings for a P-51. Given that the purpose of Aircraft Computational seems to be CAD design, this only further points to a connection. Also note that the URLs for Aircraft Reports and Aircraft Computational both use the same convention of separating the words in the business name with a hyphen rather than the much more standard no separator at all. However, the strongest bit of evidence that they are connected is the address. According to their contact us page, Aircraft Computational is located in Richmond Hill, Ontario - the same city as Aircraft Reports.

There is a fourth website, "aircraft-manuals.com" that uses the same "AR" logo as Aircraft Reports and whose about page has the same text as Aircraft Reports. So while no real reseach was necessary to determine it was connected, it is mentioned here for the sake of completeness.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that Aircraft Reports, Aircraft Blueprints Archives, Aircraft Computational and Aircraft Manuals are all part of the same organization that is run by Robert Brian Weekley. Please note, that despite the "investigative" style this post was written in, none of this was meant to be hostile. It was simply driven by the lack of information about Aircraft Reports and a goal of determining where many of the aircraft manuals found online originally came from.

As a final aside, "Aircraft Blueprints Archive" piqued my interest because we have a number of "blueprints" hanging on the wall at the museum that are stamped "CDR" and I'm curious who made them. The "blueprints" actually appear to be old Flight magazine (now Flight International) cutaways that have been printed on blue paper with title blocks and other blueprint like formatting conventions to give the appearance of original production drawings. One of the reasons it is clear they are not originals is that they have numbered labels and are isometric - both features that I have never seen on an original World War II production drawing.

EDIT (23-06-03): Below are pictures of the stamps/labels mentioned above:
Attachment:
Cover Sheet-Check Stamp.png
Cover Sheet-Check Stamp.png [ 336.71 KiB | Viewed 1305 times ]

Attachment:
Print Credit.png
Print Credit.png [ 426.44 KiB | Viewed 1305 times ]


Also, I actually came across a business the other day called AeroDrawings that sounds like it offers similar products. Not necessarily the same format, but in the sense that they are second-hand recreations, not scans of originals. However, given that there are essentially no samples provided on the website to evaluate, it is hard to say for certain.

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Last edited by Noha307 on Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2023 11:23 pm 
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Essco Aircraft is another website I have run into repeatedly, but, unfortunately, there is very little on their website about the company. However, the few bits of information it does have piqued my interest and, after a bit of research, it turned out to be a fascinating story.

First, the about page notes that they have a collection of over 180,000 items. How does one come to acquire that many manuals? An older version of the page seems to offer the answer. It states that the company has been around since 1954. So the size could be explained by gradual collecting over the years.

(A quick digression: Another reason for my curiosity came from the appearance of the website. It is such a generic website design - one that looks like it was simply a copy-pasted template from a "fill-in-the-blanks" WordPress style website creator. It gave the impression of a brand-new startup that resells manuals scanned elsewhere, not one with almost 70 years and over 180,000 items worth of history. This is all the more surprising, when I learned that Essco had a web presence as early as December 2000! It's rather unfortunate, as it belies their strengths as a company that would make them stands out from their competition.)

However, that just made me more curious. How did it start? Who was the person behind it? Where did the name Essco come from? How did they start collecting manuals? I decided to dig deeper and I think I uncovered the story.

According to an obituary, Essco was founded by a World War II veteran named Ernest S. Stadvec. It also notes that he "created a kid's TV show called 'Captain Ernie's Flying Club'". Another page on the old Essco website includes a cartoon character that is presumably named "Skippy", as this is what the file is called in the URL. The childlike nature of the character seems that it can only be related to the television show.

On the subject of the name, it seems reasonable that the name "Essco" is a phonetic pronounciation of "S Co.", which in turn, comes from "Stadvec". The fact that the name "Skippy" is alliterative would support this.

A different obituary notes that Essco was a subsidiary of Shawnee Airways, which, as stated on a page on the website Airline History, was originally founded as Stadvec Aviation in 1958. Mr. Stadvec was apparently quite the prolific author, with a page on a website about his television show noting that he published 18 books on aviation and a bunch of magazine articles. Since he had such an appreciation for the written word, this would explain his focus on manuals. The fact that he operated an airline meant that he would have access to them.

All-in-all, Ernie sounds like he was a very interesting individual and some part of me wishes I had the chance to meet him.

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PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2023 8:39 am 
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Aircorps Library is the way to go. Not only is it the best bang for your buck, but they’re great folks to work with and in it for the right reasons. I’ve made my collection available to them to scan and add as have many other operators and collectors. I can’t tell you how many times their library has saved me on the road or when I couldn’t access my own manuals. It’s through the sharing of these types of resource materials that we’ll keep these aircraft in the air.

Here’s a large portion of my collection (most removed from binders as they’re too bulky).


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PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2023 9:50 am 
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Taylor Stevenson wrote:
Aircorps Library is the way to go.


Sadly it's mainly WW2 stuff.


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:35 pm 
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Taylor Stevenson wrote:
Aircorps Library is the way to go. Not only is it the best bang for your buck, but they’re great folks to work with and in it for the right reasons.

Seconded. Their policy of digitizing manuals for free in exchange for the right to host them on their service has been very beneficial to both parties as it has allowed the museum to much more quickly populate our Internet Archive collection than if we were scanning them ourselves.

Taylor Stevenson wrote:
I’ve made my collection available to them to scan and add as have many other operators and collectors. I can’t tell you how many times their library has saved me on the road or when I couldn’t access my own manuals.

I actually have two pages from your Corsair manuals on display in the rear fuselage of our FG-1D. One is an exploded drawing of the various major assemblies and the other is a color coded diagram of the control surfaces. The former especially has been very helpful because the airplane is currently spread across the hangar in sections as it is being worked on and this often makes it difficult for the average person to identify what they are looking at. It wouldn't have been possible without your generosity.

Taylor Stevenson wrote:
Here’s a large portion of my collection (most removed from binders as they’re too bulky).

If I may ask: where do you have them stored? I'm having trouble telling exactly what I'm looking at. Based on the reflection from the lights, it looks like they're behind glass. Either way, being able to see these collections in physical form is really pretty neat. Thanks for sharing!

Lastly, it finally just occurred to me why I kept being so confused every time I came across or was trying to think of your name. It's because the name of the guy mentioned in a previous post who has uploaded a bunch of World War II aircraft manuals to a page on his website, Stephen Taylor, is almost a perfect inversion of yours. (Taylor Stevenson <--> Stephen Taylor) I kept getting the two of you mixed up!

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:35 am 
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Noha307 wrote:
If I may ask: where do you have them stored? I'm having trouble telling exactly what I'm looking at. Based on the reflection from the lights, it looks like they're behind glass. Either way, being able to see these collections in physical form is really pretty neat.


I built a floor to ceiling shelving unit in my hangar shop. Lexan panels cover each shelf to minimize dust, etc. It's climate controlled as well. Glad they've been of some use! Took forever to inventory. We should all be sharing as much info as we can to help keep these aircraft in the air.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2023 7:26 pm 
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As part my effort to find 3-views for aircraft, I was reminded of the Aviation Archives blog. It is run by Ron Downey, a former McDonnell/McDonnell Douglas engineer for 40 years, and, if the number of posts are any indication, approximately 2,800 documents have been made available through it since 2012. While some of them may no longer be accessible due to changing file hosts, it still has many rare manuals.

While looking through a YC-15 manual posted by said site, I noticed a small note in the lower left corner of the title page that read: "From PilotManuals.com / RareAviation.com". PilotManuals.com was dead (although there is an archived version of the website), but RareAviation.com is still live. At first it seemed like it was unrelated and some other company had snapped up the website after it had gone defunct as well. However, the about page revealed the answer. It states that:
Steve Rhode wrote:
Rare Aviation began in 2004 when I started to collect and give download access to rare pilot and airplane manuals. I used to spend the days at the National Archives hunting down rare and hard-to-find aviation information for pilots.

From there, my interests expanded to WWII gun camera films. I digitized and sold DVD copies and, along the way, got to know some of the amazing surviving WWII fighter pilots.

Over time, Rare Aviation has continued to evolve and, after having a hand in rescuing the old Cessna Cockpit Companion and bringing it back to an updated life, I started reengineering and design more aviation products — like our Cockpit Organizers and the Aircraft Baggage Organizers for pilots, like me, needing more space, organization, and safety while flying.

(Source: Rare Aviation)

Lastly, I was reminded of the Paperless Archives. While they cover all sorts of mostly government historical documents, they do offer a limited selection of aviation related materials including a collection of 70 Vietnam War-era flight manuals.

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