Customer Reviews

The P-47 Thunderbolt (Famous Aircraft Series)

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By todays standards that editors want this is good writing. Written in story book fashion. Very informative, how ever much more could have been written about the subject. Excellent photo work all black and white photos. (Color was probably cost prohibitive.) The art work was excellent. With the author being a former Air Guard Pilot in '51s. He wasn't that informative on the '47. Yet he still produce a very good publication. However, Morgan's later publications in this "Famous Aircraft Series" were all written by other authors. all are no longer in print, but fine examples to own. The best part of this book on the "47" was the Pilot's Operating Handbook, at the end, something that was left out in later books of the series. For the time period when it was written it was the best that you could get. As the WW II Warbird Action hadn't started. There were more books on the '51, at that time and fewer on other fighter aircraft.

My own copy has a copyright of 1963 and is the fifteenth printing, so this must be one of the oldest books about the Thunderbolt that's still being offered. How come?
One: it's [inexpensive], but the content isn't.
Two: it has good photographs, especially when compared against it's contemporaries.
Three: as a bonus it contains the complete original 96 page flight handbook! (Being brought back to 4 pages flight handbook in one page of the Len Morgan book).
There are better books about the T-bolt/Jug/Juggernaut, but if you want a collection of different books about this plane you sure have to buy this one. If you're lucky you can even get a hardcover.
Apart from the manual (AAF Manual no. 50-5), this book has something else to set it apart from all other Thunderbolt books: it has an overview of every surviving P-47 up to 1963, plus photographic material of most of them, including some vintage Confederate Air Force shots from the time they only had 9 fighter planes and still painted their aircraft white.