Customer Reviews

LUFTWAFFE SECRET PROJECTS FIGHTERS 1939-1945 (v. 1)

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The authors have done an excellent job of converting old blueprints of aircraft that the German aircraft manufactures conceived but never built during the war into realistic artist's conceptions. Unfortunately, they largely fail to explain the details of why each design was a breakthough or a failure, and why they did not make it to production. That makes what could have been a facinating investigation into the aeronautical science of the day into little more than a good coffee table book.

This book is not a technical masterpiece, but it serves the purpose of enlightening readers about the technology of aviation from the drawing boards of 1945 to actual aircraft built based on those designs (for example the Focke Wulf TA-183 was an obvious precursor to the MIG-15 of Korean War infamy). The color paintings will prove of particular use to modellers of experimental luftwaffe aircraft.

I was amazed at the amount of material that I had never seen before in this book. The illustrations are extremely well presented and the background material places them in historical context. I have truly enjoyed this book!

X-planes have always held a special place in the aviation enthusiasts' heart. The fascination with what could have been and an enthusiasm for unheralded aircraft designs are showcased in this solid Midlands Publishing book from the Secret Projects series. This first volume of the Luftwaffe Series, from German authors Walter Schick and Ingolf Meyer, is an excellent illustration into the German engineering and design effort during World War II.

From 1939-1945, German designers labored to create a new generation of aircraft to replace the Me-109, Focke-Wulf 190, and Ju-87 Stuka, incorporating upgraded piston engines and the new jet turbines. With the fall of the Third Reich, much of the aviation engineering and design history was lost or appropriated by the Allied Powers. The authors spent years researching to gather together the aircraft contained within. Though most are only portrayed in vivid color sketches by Meyer, who is both an aviation enthusiast and graphic designer, several designs are pictured in rare photographs.

The 173 pages of this volume are broken down into six topical chapters: Piston Engine Zenith, Single-Seat Jets, Jet Heavyweights, People's Fighter vs People's Aircraft, Night and All-Weather Fighters, and Beyond the Me 262-Designs for 1946-1947. There are well over 200 designs sketches, artist renditions, and photographs, and this volume is the best in the series in bringing these aircraft to life. The translation from the original German is exceptional; there are few grammatical errors and the text reads smoothly, although there is some noticeable German sentence structure. Author Walter Schick is a mechanical engineer, and his knowledge of aeronautics and engineering combine to present an accurate picture of the capabilities of the designs.

What is most impressive about this book is the technological advancement of the German engineers. Reading this volume is like seeing a preview of 40 years of American and Soviet aviation design. The Germans were the first to design viable flying wing designs (later seen in the American YB-49 and B-2 Stealth designs), the first to incorporate delta, swept, and forward swept wings design technology (even one bizarre swivel wing design from Blohm and Voss), and basically paved the path for the next 40 years of aircraft design. Although most designs never made it to the prototype stage, due to wartime funding restrictions and Allied bombing, the viability of each design is well argued by Schick.

The Secret Projects series from Midland Publishing gives a glimpse into the fascinating world of aircraft design that might have been forever lost if not for the passion and diligence of the authors and publisher. This is an important volume, along with Volumes 2 and 3 in the Luftwaffe series, as these designs are the true vanguards of the jet era. This and other Midland Publishing books can be ordered on Amazon or directly from Midland Publishing's US distributor, Specialty Press, or at their website, Specialtypress.com. Highly recommended for enthusiasts and modelers.

A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO

At the beginning of World War II the world had pretty well settled on what fighter aircraft would look like: an engine up front (usually a V-12), a low wing, a single pilot, machine guns firing through the propeller and/or mounted in the wings. To be sure there were some that didn't look like that, the Navy wanted radial engines, the P-38's twin boom construction, the P-39 with its engine behind the pilot, but most, from all air forces met the standard.

But as time went on, the tecnologies began to change. Where do you put the radar, and the changes in airframes to suit the jet engine where you had big air intakes and exhausts caused a tremendous amount of thinking about where things go.

At the forefront of this thinking was the Germans. They were basically ahead of the rest of the world. They had rocket and jet engines much further into development and production than the rest. Each of the airframe manufacturers in Germany produced a number of prospective designs to present to the Government. Strangely enough, many of these designs have a very close resemblence to aircraft produced later by the Soviets, British or Americans. Once in a while the author shows photographs of the later planes with the sketches or drawings the Germans were doing.

Obviously most of these aircraft were never built. You think about, sketch, discuss, and design very carefully before you commit the money to bending sheet metal. It makes you wonder where the authors found all this information.

The research effort into the a/c themselves was extensive, careful, and critical, producing descriptions of, & data on, the a/c themselves that is excellent. Information provided on the revolutionary powerplants and armaments, which made these a/c fighter weapons, is much less detailed; nonexistent in the case of the weapons. By far, the book's greatest flaw is the amatuerish artwork. The colour drawings are on every page, and so poorly done that they detract from the book on every level. The "art" is awful. The cover painting is great, but that's it. Even the line drawings are amatuerish; art exhibits poor execution of perspective, and childlike "pilots" that are embarassing, while the line art is just sloppy. Were it not for the abysmal art, the book would get 4 stars from me. As it is, not worth the money unless you have a use for the technical info, and even then, it costs too much; had the art been better, it would have been worth the price.

The strength of any book that seeks to recreate the projected German aircraft of World War II is the quality of its artwork. When well done, either photographed from models or digitally drawn in three dimensions, these planes evoke a sense of what might have been developed had the war continued. Although "Luftwaffe Secret Projects" does have serviceable three-view line drawings and brief descriptions of the aircraft, the illustrations for both volumes are disappointing, and either have a chameleon-like vividness or the silvery artificiality of what would be found on a lunchbox from the Fifties. A comparison with the art found at Luft '46 is a reminder that it can be done better.

I found this book, and it's two companions, to be very informative, keenly illustrated, loaded with rare photos, and easy to read. It makes a great coffee table book, and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the WWII Luftwaffe and what might have been... Super job Mr's Schick and Meyer!

There's several books and a a few websites that talk about the "secret" weapons the Germans developed in Word War Two. For the most part it's rehashing of the same material, the Second World War is one of the most documented events in history, so the aircraft out there are documented numerous times. What makes this books (and all the succeeding ones) rise above the rest is it focuses on specific subset of aircraft, projects that for the most part never got past the prototype stage, and documents it with an encyclopedic thoroughness. My only fault is the illustrations vary somewhat in quality, and sometimes don't match exactly with the schematic drawings. However, for aircraft that often were never available to photographed that's about what can be expected. I consider this series a must have for all military aviation enthusiasts.