Digital Aircraft Manual Sources

[grimes]

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.

[Noha307]

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

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:

I see that you have had some problems with hosting sites failing. Might I suggest that you look into posting your documents on the Internet Archive? Although they are known for their effort to archive the Internet, they also have a collection of over 20 million texts to which anyone can upload. They are committed to long term preservation and completely free. I actually created a collection on their website to host documents I have scanned at the museum where I work.

I would also suggest contacting AirCorps Library. They are a subscription service offering access to historic military aircraft manuals and drawings. I have worked extensively with the woman who runs it, Ester Aube, to have materials from our collection scanned, and would highly recommend them (and others agree). I know that you have made your scans available for free, so I can understand if you're not interested in providing them to an organization that has a paywall. That being said, I think they would be interested in many of the materials you have. For example, the Bendix Chin Turret Operation Manual. My understanding is that they would also be hesitant to use any materials that you have not scanned personally unless you could provide permission. The bottom line is, if you are interested, just reach out to them to see what you think.

Sperry Lower manual from Kingman

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.

[grimes]

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

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:

I see that you have had some problems with hosting sites failing. Might I suggest that you look into posting your documents on the Internet Archive? Although they are known for their effort to archive the Internet, they also have a collection of over 20 million texts to which anyone can upload. They are committed to long term preservation and completely free. I actually created a collection on their website to host documents I have scanned at the museum where I work.

I would also suggest contacting AirCorps Library. They are a subscription service offering access to historic military aircraft manuals and drawings. I have worked extensively with the woman who runs it, Ester Aube, to have materials from our collection scanned, and would highly recommend them (and others agree). I know that you have made your scans available for free, so I can understand if you're not interested in providing them to an organization that has a paywall. That being said, I think they would be interested in many of the materials you have. For example, the Bendix Chin Turret Operation Manual. My understanding is that they would also be hesitant to use any materials that you have not scanned personally unless you could provide permission. The bottom line is, if you are interested, just reach out to them to see what you think.

Sperry Lower manual from Kingman

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.

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.

[Avn-Tech]

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.

[Noha307]

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.

Thanks for all of the history!

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

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

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.

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.

[quemerford]

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.

[Noha307]

FYI, I recall that "Air Caravan" was actually Air Service Caravan

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".

[quemerford]

FYI, I recall that "Air Caravan" was actually Air Service Caravan

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".

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

[Noha307]

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:

If you're looking for a manual for a specific aircraft, one of the best ways to do it is by using the "file type" parameter in Google Advanced Search. Select "Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf)" from the drop down menu and then enter the name of the aircraft along with the type of the manual you're seeking (e.g. pilot's handbook, parts catalog, erection and maintenance, etc.) in the "all these words:" or similar fields. Since most of the manuals that have been posted online are in PDF format, this will eliminate a lot of the unrelated results. This technique works particularly well for common general aviation aircraft, as a number of flight schools or aircraft type clubs have scanned copies of the manuals for the aircraft they own and uploaded them to their respective websites.

On the other hand, if a USAAF technical order is what you want, make sure to check out the posts The "T.O." System and WWII Military Technical Orders by Ester Aube of AirCorps Library for an explanation of the systems. The Numerical Index of Technical Publications, T.O. 00-1, should have a complete list of them. Check out a forum thread for both a further explanation of the system as well as a summary of the aircraft manufacturer prefixes.

[Noha307]

Today, I happened to come across a very interesting article by Wired about Newport Aeronautical, which was mentioned in a previous post. It's titled "The Family That Mined the Pentagon’s Data for Profit" and covers how the company, which is run George MacArthur Posey III, was able to obtain copies of manuals for U.S. military hardware through various - and sometimes questionably legal - means and then resell them to overseas buyers in sometimes equally questionable deals. The story of the company is placed in the larger context of the of the Freedom of Information Act. If a previous post covers one half of the legal situation involving reproduction of military manuals - copyright - then this article covers the other half: classification.

It also - courtesy of a law professor - provides a term for the general government declassification sites mentioned in a previous post: "information resellers".

EDIT (24-08-06): I came across another information reseller called Combat Index the other day.

Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Aug 05, 2024 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Noha307]

In case anyone missed it, Vintage Aviation News posted an article about digitization and aviation museums the other day. While it's not specifically about manuals, it does touch on the behind-the-scenes portion of the digitization.

[quemerford]

Changing tack slightly, does anyone know where one can purchase T.O. binders these days? All I have is 'new-old stock' from twenty or more years ago and I'm running out!

[Noha307]

Changing tack slightly, does anyone know where one can purchase T.O. binders these days? All I have is 'new-old stock' from twenty or more years ago and I'm running out!

Actually, I'm very glad you brought this up because I had the exact same problem somewhat recently. For anyone unfamiliar, the issue is that the spacing between the holes is different from the standard today, so modern 3-ring binder don't work. I actually went so far as to make my own custom version:

(Source: Collections Care and Display Design on a Budget (self created PowerPoint presentation))

Since the links in the images are obviously not clickable, they are as follows:

• webpage
• blog post
• Purchased via Amazon

However, the result was less than ideal. So if anyone knows where to find them, I would be very interested as well.

[quemerford]

Spacing's not the problem for me - it's trying to obtain replacements. I'm not happy with ring binders because there's no spine support but I may look at your solution. Only problem might be binding manuals that are easily 3 inches thick.

[quemerford]

Well thanks for the tip anyway: I managed to find a set of posts up to 45mm and in fact I may look at getting some stainless steel rod for tapping and with a bit of welding expertise....

It seems a bit extreme, but it looks like the only solution at present.