Customer Reviews

Pfalz Scout Aces of World War 1 (Aircraft of the Aces)

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

 

 

Pfalz biplanes equipped many German Jadgstaffels in World War I. Though never as popular or as numerous as its Fokker or Albatros contemporaries, Pfalz D III, D IIIa, D VIII and D XII biplanes saw combat from mid-1917 to war's end. The combat record of Pfalz aces is covered in this volume, #71 in Osprey's 'Aircraft of the Aces' series.

In one respect the 'Pfalz Aces' title is misleading. Many Jadgstaffels flew a mixture of Pfalz, Fokker and/or Albatros fighters but German victory records did not specify which aircraft a pilot was flying when he claimed a kill. So, while many famous German aces like Werner Voss, Paul Baumer, Fritz Hohn, Emil Thuy, Hans Bethge, Paul Billik, Erich Lowenhardt and others flew the sleek biplanes, author Greg VanWyngarden expressly acknowledges that not all may, in fact, have scored five or more kills in Pfalz fighters.

In any case, VanWyngarden's book is an interesting chronicle of the WWI air war from the German side. VanWyngarden uses many first-hand accounts in the book which is nicely illustrated with 90 black & white photos and 12 pages of color profiles by Harry Dempsey. The colorful paint schemes worn by the Pfalz biplanes are a visual delight.

Air war enthusiasts will enjoy this book. It highlights the efforts of some intrepid pilots like Bethge, Hohn and Billik and units such as Jastas 16b, 21s, 30, 47w, 52, 79b and others that haven't received the historical coverage they deserve.

Another nicely done, informative Osprey piece.

Osprey has done a fine job in putting together a series of informative books on war. Their aviation series are a personal favorite of mine. These books contain much information, excellent photos and full color plates of the aircraft covered. A nice, clean, concise account of the subject matter. In this case it's the German Aces who flew the Pfalz Scouts in the Great War. Grey Vanwyngarten does a fine job (again) here. He knows his stuff, and is a dedicated buff of the First War in the Air. Just the Osprey books alone would fill a nice shelf in your library.

The Pfalz fighters and their pilots were always in the shadow of the more famous Fokker and Albatros. The author does a wonderful job documenting these little-known fighters given the relative lack of material available; there is new information here, including new photos and new color profiles, just what the excellent Osprey series is known for. This book is an excellent reference for enthusiasts, historians, and modelers, and is a must for anyone interested in Pfalz fighters or their operations.

Folks,
For the amount of time and effort that is put into this book, it is well worth the price.
In fact I might say you are getting a whole lot of bang for the buck. (I.e. the price of one picture on the Net and bidding for it - will run you at minimum $2.00 and as much as $50.00 in some cases) The amount of pictures in this book is a real deal, and think about how much research that goes into finding out who the persons in the picture are, what time period, where they were located and what unit they belonged too, is really time consuming.
In addition, other books on this subject are almost out of reach for the average man's pocket book and I thank the author for making it "affordable" to the common Joe.
I doubt that you can open up the internet and immediately find a particular picture contained within this book, with all the history that goes along with it, in a short amount of time, and that is - if you can find any info about the picture at all.
Research - to say the least - is time consuming and to put something in chronologic order is even more consuming.
A lot of midnight oil was burned to putting this jewel together and I recommend it to anyone who has a mild interest in WW1 aircraft and to top it off - the price can not be beat.

This book is full of information, photos, and color drawings for modelers
but I thought it was thin, and expensive. The information is technical
and a little boring to read. It did help me realize the aircraft of world war one were Larger than I thought they were. A lot of the replicas these
days are scaled down and not as large as the originals, unless they were
built from original plans.