Warbird Information Exchange

Is there a good place to upload PDF's scans I took from the manuals I own?

I have a Sperry Upper manual from Lowry, and a Sperry Lower manual from Kingman, that would be good to share.








Also have this unissued certification from Kingman.

First, thanks for being willing to share!

I actually sent an email to the guy behind the Aviation Archives blog on this very subject just a month ago. Rather than rewriting it, I'll just copy-paste the relevant portion of the response below:



Coincidentally, I actually found a copy of that Sperry Lower Ball Training Manual in one of our collections at the museum and had it scanned. (It was actually one of a number of manuals that AirCorps Library did for us.) However, I don't mean to discourage you from uploading your copy. There's many reasons to have more than one available - redundancy, differences in editions, etc.

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

All good, glad to see there is already a copy of the Kingman manual out there. It's a real shame when these manuals are lost to time.

I have a couple original Russian WWII manuals that there are no copies out there anywhere, so I'd like to get them out there to be stored digitally. The problem I've found is when it comes time to send them as there is a limit to how much you can attach in one email.

On top of that, my scans are not likely the best. Hard to scan a tight bound book, so the inner letters/words don't always come out clear.

Group,

I started collecting aircraft manuals in 1995, and there were 3-4 companies around at that time.

At one time there was Esco East & Esco West. I believe that Esco west was the son of the original founder.

I visited Thompson's Aviation Library and was amazed at the collection he had. The problem was that the girls filing his manuals did not know much about aircraft.

I have bumped into Fortuno Sicarro several times, and he goes by several different names. Our first run-in started as we competed on ebay to buy manuals. He had a good business plan, buy manuals, scan them and then sell the originals. The problem is that he flooded the market with scans.

Some of my manuals are copies from the old Air Caravan seller.

I probably have the most complete database of manuals out there. I list manual Number, date of issue, last change date and title for each manual in my collection. My database also list manuals I have seen someplace else (in red, as reference). I tried to attach an example, but i can not attach an excel file to my message.

Thanks for all of the history!


I am not familiar with Air Caravan. Could you provide more information about who they were?


Unfortunately, there's no way to attach anything other than an image file to a WIX post. However, I'd really love to see the complete list. If you're willing to share it, you can find my email address on the about page of my personal website.

Aside from the original wartime Numerical Index of Technical Publications, T.O. 00-1, the only other similar list I am aware of is the Military Manual Index compiled by Mike Smith on the Aircraft Engine Historical Society website. So an additional reference would be very useful.

Subsets of Sources
In addition to the standard providers of aircraft manuals - the ones dedicated solely to aircraft manuals - there are two other, less obvious sources:

General Government Declassification Sites
These include efforts like the Paperless Archives, Public Intelligence, Liberated Manuals.com and the eBay store Filmsdocs. Their goal is to make any government documents, not just aircraft manuals, available to the public. However, even though their focus is broader, military aircraft manuals, as a subset of the category "government documents", get swept up in the collection. Instead of scanning original paper manuals, these sources obtain their copies from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. One of the benefits of these sites is that, unlike most other sources, there is no need to double check with them for permission before reusing the materials they have posted since it is clear from their mission that they want them to be distributed without restriction.

Individual Collators
These are people who make lists or collections of manuals, although they frequently don't do the scanning themselves. However, they are generally not in the "business" to make money and make their manuals available for free, rather than selling them. For example, the other day, while searching for more sources, I came across a reddit thread, which led me to a website which had links to other sources. These include the type specific technical orders page on the USAF SIG website, the manuals page on the AirWar website and the user mandolinmagi on the Internet Archive. Other examples include the user "micrdow" in the Technical section of the WW2Aircraft forum and Ron Downey of the blog Aviation Archives.

Interestingly, much of the growth in this category has been driven by video games like War Thunder, as players seek out manuals for the vehicles they are controlling on their computer - either to better understand them or to correct technical errors in the models of said vehicles. The latter has led to an unfortunate phenomena that began in July 2021, where still-classified materials have been released. This problem is sufficiently extensive that it has led to frequent jokes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) on the subject. The standard protection to the problem of confidential information among dedicated manual providers seems to be a blank prohibition on reproducing manuals less than 10 years old.

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

FYI, I recall that "Air Caravan" was actually Air Service Caravan: I bought a few manuals from them. I'm sure I still have a sticker somewhere on one of the covers.

"Esco" was/is Essco.

Thanks! A quick search for "Air Service Caravan" on Google turned up an engine manual with a stamp for the company on the title page and an IWM object entry which indicates they were located in New Bedford, Massachusetts. According to a forum post, as of 2010 the business had been taken over and renamed to "Aircraft Repairs Unlimited".

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

New Bedford! That's the one. Sounded like somewhere Jimmy Stewart would have lived.

The other day I wrote an explanation for another group on how to search for aircraft manuals. I thought it might be helpful here as well, so I've posted an edited excerpt below:

_________________
Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster