Customer Reviews

In the Cockpit: Inside 50 History-Making Aircraft

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are some wonderful flight sims out there. You can sit at your PC and fly all sorts of aircraft. Not too bad, huh? With most of these sims you can see the controls. Sometimes the controls are rendered quite faithfully, at other times you get a generic rendition. In this book, however, you'll find that other than for WW I craft, interiors get very complex indeed.

50 aircraft interiors are covered here--lots of well-done full-color photographs. With the Halberstadt CL IV in 1917 you get a spartan cockpit--about a half-dozen gauges and a handful of switches and levers. It shouldn't be too hard remembering which is which. Taking off, flying, and landing, well, that's different. The 1937 Piper Cub--still quite simple. The 1927 Lockheed Vega--maybe 15 gauges, and 20 levers. The Hurricane of WW II begins to look quite a bit more intimidating: the Corsair takes another jump in complexity. The MIG-15 begins to look despairingly difficult (yet pilots regularly flew it). The Concorde looks as if it might require its own 250-page section in a flight sim manual. Leave the actual flying to others--while you browse this delightful book!

This book is beautiful! I saw it at Borders today. Even if you are not interested in cockpits you should pick up this book. Cockpits are interesting and these are some of the most famous aircraft of all time.

BEAUTIFUL photography. In addition to the photos I really enjoyed the nostalgic look and feel to the book. A very cool book indeed by two of the world's best aircraft photographers. No wonder they work at the Smithsonian...

David Palermo

I purchased this book for my husband for Christmas and he has thoroughly enjoyed the book. He is a former pilot (retired) so he had a "built-in" interest. There were so many cockpits he had not seen and he enjoyed seeing and reading about each. I highly recommend this book for anyone with a pilot in their family.

Beautiful book. The cover looks like leather, the book's quality reminds you of an antique book. The photographs are excellent and extremely detailed. I purchased it for a nephew who is really into WWII plains, trains and ships. For a historical aircraft lover it's a perfect gift. I only read a page or two, so I can not comment on the writing, but I believe the real beauty is in the photographs. Even someone who has little interst in aircraft found the pictures compelling.

Being hung up on internal details I really liked this book. It is a treasure trove for cockpit color data. Favorites are the He 219 Ki-45, Ju 388 and FJ-1. Ideal for modelers and armchair aeronuts.

My father was absolutely delighted with this book! He's a Navy veteran and worked at airports for many years. He loves it.

This was a great gift for an aeronautical engineer. The book has gorgeous photos and interesting facts. He loved it.

This volume covers 50 "history making aircraft". There is no doubt the aircraft depicted are historic, but I'm not sure all of them made history (what did the Ecker flying boat contribute, for example) but they are certainly interesting.

The book does cover a good range of interesting subjects. Unlike the second volume, (In the Cockpit 2: Inside History-Making Aircraft of World War II) which covers WWII aircraft only, this volume covers aircraft from the beginning of aviation to the present day and both military and civil types. Although there is limited text, the cockpit detail in the photos provides excellent reference material for scale modellers seeking information on the "office" details of popular aircraft. Both this volume and its companion volume represent very good value for money.

Gave this as a gift to my pilot father and he loved it. Perfect choice for anyone who aprreciates these aircraft. Great pictures and cover design!

This will be a perfect gift for my son, who loves aviation and history. The book, itself, is very attractively done, definitely one to keep. I skimmed through it, and know my son will be interested in all the information it provides.