Customer Reviews

History of Aircraft Piston Engines : Aircraft Piston Engines from the Manly Balzer to the Continental Tiara (McGraw-Hill Series in Aviation)

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

 

 

Good reference book but does not read like a novel. It touches on most of the important advances in aircraft piston engines but does not go into great detail on any individual engine. Rather, it gives an overview on many different engines spending more time on engines with significant step forward.

In the preface, the author candidly admits he is not a historian or an expert in engines, he is just a history buff interested in aircraft engines that was "tired of waiting" for somebody else to write this book.
The book is dated. While that makes for one or two odd passages referring to modern engines, that has little or nothing to do with 95% of that discusses older aircraft engines. As the author implied, the true value of this book is that it covers in-depth a subject that is really ignored elsewhere. For all the books on aircraft, very little has been published on the engine development. That makes it challenging to compare, because there is no competition.
The book is well written, but there are a few errors that the editor should have caught. For example, on page 222, one paragraph begins to insert (presumably) German words. I read "Der extensions", "piston und kompressing some of the kraftstoffe", and I have no idea what "upgesticken" means.
For a humble history buff, the author is decidedly opinionated, even cynical at times. He makes several emphatic statements about poor design, engineering decisions, and other matters. Perhaps if he supported his statements with authoritative sources, but the reader is just left with his opinion. One irony was a negative comment (originally published in 1981) on the commercial failure of the Wankel rotary engine - just as Mazda started a 10 year run of explosive sales of rotary powered sports cars.
Graphics are the biggest drawback to this book. Point blank, the drawings and pictures are not very useful.
There are very few cutaways. Most of the graphics are photographs of museum pieces, and none of them are highlighted or have labeled parts. Some graphics are very crude drawings attempting to show the mechanical movement of a certain part of the engine, but they lack reference points to the engine. The reference points are critical to understanding how a piece fits into the engine design.
Unfortunately, for discussing the deep technical mechanics of how something works, clear drawings are essential. Entire sections are rendered virtually useless by the lack of supporting graphics. There are lots of graphics included, they just aren't helpful enough.
Despite mentioning the aircraft powered by the engines, only a handful of the aircraft are shown. This is a minor point given the inadequate graphics overall, but have a thick aircraft reference book nearby to look up the aircraft.
Despite this, the book is still worthwhile. The author obviously made a valiant attempt to document a segment of history that was previously ignored. Cutaway drawings are expensive, and the author probably did all he could with the resources available.

Generally I like this book, and refer to it all the time. I particularily like the conversational writing style. However it fails either in breadth or depth, so it you have to supplant this with other books as well.

Forget about trying to get the history or real details on any particular engine. If you're looking for the history or lineage of something like the Jumo 211, it's just not there. But at the same time it could not be considered encyclopedic either. Only the major engines are mentioned, and even in that case there seem to be a lot of missing examples.

Another problem is the low quality of the illustrations and photographs, but they do serve their purpose.

Finally, I couldn't shake the feeling that this book really should have been better researched. The author often asks questions along the lines of "I wonder why they did...", when the answer is fairly well known.

Anyone interested in piston engines of any kind should own and read this book. It is one good overview of the development of the the piston engine with a good amount of detail.

A well written book with many great illustrations and photographs. Good write ups on common and not-so-common aircraft engines. If you're interested in old iron, this is a great book for your collection.

A great deal of research went into this book and the net result is one of decent assemblage. As an alumnus of Parks College of Aeronautical Technology and as a Docent at Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, I use this book frequently. In all my efforts, accuracy is of the utmost importance. This book satisfies me in my efforts. I only have one gripe with it, and it is relatively minor. There is a clear, well-defined, difference between engines and motors. Engines require heat energy in order to perform work and motors do not. Motors produce heat as a result of performing work...a big difference. It appears that the author is not aware of this and he continues to equate the terms (engines and motors). Other than that, he has done a fine job. I know the difference and, when asked or conducting a tour, I so inform visitors of this difference with a touch of humor. Regardless, I love the book. The author did a good job.