the best aircraft recognition book etc,who makes it?

camshaw · **Posted:** Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:14 pm

looking for a book of pictures that covers as many british,us,german aircraft of ww2, I've seen "Janes' "Aircraft Recognition Guide" but it looks like you have to buy a bunch of them to cover the allies and axis planes,or am I wrong?

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

Barnes and Noble used to sell a humongous volume with "all" the world's aircraft.

Very comprehensive -of course some obscure aircraft were missing- and you could basically find at least one image or photo of every airplane ever built or produced.

Hope this helps.

Ah! Price? IIRC, I paid less than $30.00 for it, and it was well worth every single penny.

Saludos,

Tulio

JDK · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:05 am

What do you want it for?

Airshows? Quizes? Gen knowledge? Amazing your cat?

There are any amount of potboilers out there for gen listings but IMHO there's no one book that substitutes for my hard-won knowledge, library, or talking to the owner! :lol:

For general guides I find the internet fine, and the old Macdonald series, although incomplete, pretty good for W.W.II types.

Give us more details, and you may get more useful answers.

HTH

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

I thought that my answer was useful.

I provided information about a publisher, but if that is not useful, then Iwould appreciate it if the new standards for usefulness are posted for future reference.

Saludos,

Tulio

JDK · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 6:45 am

Sorry Tulio, I'm not suggesting your info wasn't useful. Just that 'the best' varies depending on what it's 'best' for, IMHO.

The answer, IMHO, will vary depending on who/what the book is for. A 10 year old kid's primer for a present would be very different to a car glovebox handbook for an airshow goer, or indeed different again for a home desk reference.

(BTW: B&N are, AFAIK, a bookseller (and maybe a book packager, rather than a publisher, but as I try to avoid them I might be wrong). Either way, title, author ISBN etc is useful to identify the same book.)

Regards,

Tulio · **Joined:** Mon May 03, 2004 1:05 am **Posts:** 3236

I hate to be boastful, because I am not. I have thousands of aviation books in my collection. Of those, the few whose data impresses me the most, are the ones I would suggest.

In this case, it was a very specialized request and alas, being away from home and not having direct access to my books, I proceeded with a suggestion, without the ISBN.

The Barnes and Noble book I mentiones was in my opinion, something that would be useful to him. It has been useful to me.

Between my last posting and this one, I was googling B&N for the specific book, but I have not been able to find it.

I will go later today to the local B&N and see if I can find the volume, and if I can, then I will provide more information.

Saludos,

Tulio

JDK · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 6:58 am

No problem, it's not a big deal.

Holedigger · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:23 am

Any ONE book, is going to have to be a generalized book that will irritate Warbird aficionados, as they will have a small pic, a small 3-view graphic and a paragraph or two. The "Big Book Chain" books are probably the best deal as you get a lot of pages/pics for the money because of their mass printings.

famvburg · **Joined:** Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:41 am **Posts:** 540

Not knowing specifically what you want, but my suggestion is by Enzo Angelucci(?) "Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft". IIRC, it spans from at least WWI - early '90s. It's not perfect, many of the 3 views aren't 100% exact in finer details (ISTR specifically landing gears & props). It's a big heavy book, but covers nearly everything that was produced & flown. There are several on eBay, starting at about $19 on up.

camshaw wrote:

looking for a book of pictures that covers as many british,us,german aircraft of ww2, I've seen "Janes' "Aircraft Recognition Guide" but it looks like you have to buy a bunch of them to cover the allies and axis planes,or am I wrong?

JDK · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:01 am

famvburg wrote:

Not knowing specifically what you want, but my suggestion is by Enzo Angelucci(?) "Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft". IIRC, it spans from at least WWI - early '90s. It's not perfect, many of the 3 views aren't 100% exact in finer details (ISTR specifically landing gears & props). It's a big heavy book, but covers nearly everything that was produced & flown. There are several on eBay, starting at about $19 on up.

Certainly I've heard good things about that. like Tulio's suggestion, as good as you are going to get in a one vol job, I suspect.

The only one vol that I have to hand is 'Combat Aircraft of W.W.II' by Weale and Weale, Bracken Books. There's no photos, few drawings (line profiles) and a batch of 3 views in the front. However it lists most major and minor types and has cross-checked data on numbers, dimensions and performance, and is, from experience a lot more accurate than most sources for this detail. It also is arranged by nationality, including most minor players, and has some order of battles in (which I don't use). As an author and editor, I find it invaluable - but it may not suit for our thread starter.

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:53 am

I have a BUNCH of books with three view drawings - which I collected for a while when I had a lot more time and enjoyed taking a drawing and turning it into a wooden model. That said, I'm not sure if I know of any one reference that is the best. Most of them cover either a specific genre or a specific time period, I've yet to see a definitive book that covers a majority of everything.

Ryan

camshaw · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:02 am

sorry,didn't mean to start a verbal fight.....to be specific, I'm looking for profiles as if you were standing 200 feet above them for some side scan sonar work I'm doing...Need to identify a few sunken aircraft from the ww2 era...overhead and side profiles would suffice...

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:22 am

camshaw wrote:

sorry,didn't mean to start a verbal fight.....to be specific, I'm looking for profiles as if you were standing 200 feet above them for some side scan sonar work I'm doing...Need to identify a few sunken aircraft from the ww2 era...overhead and side profiles would suffice...

Is this top secret or maybe something where some of us could help out with the recognition part?

Ryan

camshaw · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:52 am

top secret,I'd have to kill you if I told you kinda stuff....just wanted to have some pictures infront of me to be prepared....there's a bunch of spotters cards on ebay but only usa planes,I need british planes too...I'll keep searching,thats what I'm good at...

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:07 am

Well, it sounds to me like you need something better than the little black silhouettes in Janes - but that would be a good start. If I was doing something like that I think I'd want bigger drawings that would show more details in case the wreck was only partially visible.

Here is the first book I'd recommend for starters:

Janes Fighting Aircraft of WWII

It's available for a LOT cheaper than I paid for it (something like $30-40 when it was just out).

Ryan

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