Customer Reviews

Lockheed 188 Electra (Great Airliners Series, Vol. 5)

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

 

 

Whether you are an Electra fan, interested in airliners history or an airliner buff, this book will be a very good candidate for you to own.

The book starts with a concise history of Lockheed to give the reader a good background to the aircraft and continues with the process of the aircraft design and certification. This part while containing considerable technical detail of the aircraft and engines, keeps the pace of the subject delivering enough information to maintain the concentration of the reader, whether the reader is a technical one or not.
The following chapter continues with Electra's early service period which is followed by a well organized chapter dealing with the early problems, disasters and fixes to the aircraft.
The period of the Electra II (or Super Electra) follows in the 4th chapter with a very good list of the airline operators while the other operators are listed in the 5th chapter.
Ending the book is the detailed Hull Losses Chapter and the inevitable Conclusion.

The book contains also four appendices with the first comparing the Electra with the turboprops of the time, the second contains the operators list while the third contains the complete production list. Unlike many other aviation reference books, this one features a nice bibliography in appendix 4.

For those interested in airliner photos, this book has a very-very nice collection. The 50mm ramp sunny shots buff will be quite happy with the number of such shots taken from several top-notch photographers.

The Author, David G. Powers, has done an outstanding and extremely thorough job in collecting a considerable amount of information, writing a easy-to-follow book and handsomely illustrating it. I'd say it is one of the best airliner references I have ever seen. I was impressed!

The "Great Airliners Series", although small in numbers, generally includes very good airliner references, kudos to Jon Proctor - the Editor of the Series - for the achievements, and the "Lockheed 188 Electra" is definitely a book that will remain for me on the top shelf.

Good printing, good and beautiful picturess but the ultimate book of electras is yet to be done.

This is the second best

I remember when we, Western Airlines, got our Electras. They could beat United's new, underpowered DC-8's From SEA to SFO by about 3 minutes - block to block. Shared this with a buddy of mine who flew them for nearly a year for Transamerica. It was his favorite throghout his many years of flying (retired fron United.