The Wrong Stuff?: Attempts at Flight Before (& After) the Wright Brothers [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Phil Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2003

This pictorial history features illustrations, with aircraft specifications, from da Vinvi's great bird to the NASA/AMES expertimental one piece swivelling wing plane.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Phil Scott lives and works in New York. He is a writer for Air and Space magazine, and is an inter-nationally renowned expert on the history of flight. He is the author of The Shoulders of Giants and The Pioneers of Flight. He is the former managing editor of Flying and Omni, and he frequently writes for such publications as Scientific American, New Scientist, Reader's Digest, the Chicago Tribune, and Cigar Aficionado.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Hylas Publishing; First Edition edition (October 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592580440
• ISBN-13: 978-1592580446
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,291,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Phil Scott is the award-winning author of hundreds of magazine articles and six books: The Shoulders of Giants, The Pioneers of Flight, 21st Century Soldier, The Wrong Stuff, Deadly, and Hemingway's Hurricane. He lives in Manhattan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An OUTSTANDING book!, October 20, 2003

By 

Joseph J. Castanza, Ph.D. (Fairlawn, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wrong Stuff?: Attempts at Flight Before (& After) the Wright Brothers (Hardcover)

As a part-time flight instructor, I think that teaching at least some of the history of aviation along with the skills and knowledge required to fly an airplane makes for a well-rounded pilot. Not unlike his other two books, 'On the Shoulders of Giants' and 'Pioneers of Flight,' Phil Scott's latest book, "The Wrong Stuff," is a veritable compendium of aviation history and information that is a must-have for every aviation enthusiast and pilot . Wonderfully written, easy to read, and hard to put down, "The Wrong Stuff" is a wonderful, warm, and humorous account of all the things that went wrong leading up to the Wright Brothers' first flight, and some of the attempts made at flight by others afterward. Scott introduces these history-making people to the reader in such a way that he or she will come to know and befriend them; the reader will empathetically share the frustrations of failure-and the joys of success-as encountered by the characters in this book. I would recommend this book to anyone with even the slightest inkling of an interest in aviation; in particular, I'd recommend the book to anyone getting onto an airplane for a transcontinental flight.

I would also recommend Phil's other books: "On the Shoulders of Giants" and "Pioneers of Flight."

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Produced, Poorly Conceived, July 1, 2004

By 

A. Bowdoin Van Riper (Vineyard Haven, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wrong Stuff?: Attempts at Flight Before (& After) the Wright Brothers (Hardcover)

Phil Scott's new book is a superb collection of beautifully reproduced photographs of (mostly) obscure airplanes. Many types are covered by multiple photographs, including a number that I'd never seen in 30+ years of reading about the history of aviation. The photographs may, depending on your interests, be worth the price of the book.

The text is another story entirely

There is, to begin with, very little text. Each aircraft gets a single explanatory paragraph and a small box that lists basic information (where known) about its performance. The performance information is frequently spotty, and the descriptive paragraphs are frequently interrupted by the author's smirking asides and strained attempts at cuteness. Even given the one-paragraph-per-plane limit, the descriptions are notable for their shallowness and lack of useful information.

The text is also marred by errors. Some are subtle and ultimately trivial, like the misspelling of "Dreidecker," German for "triplane," as "dridecker." Others are glaring: To say that the X-15 was the "ancestor" (rather than "descendent") of the X-1 is either a ludicrous error of fact or an eighth-grade-level confusion of two words with related (but opposite) meanings. At times, the author overreaches to make a point, as when he claims that Apollo lunar lander and the sleek silver spaceships of 1950s science-fiction both landed "tail first." At other times, as when discussing the highly corrosive fuel used to power the Me-163 rocket plane, he neglects information that would have reinforced his point. At least once, he flatly contradicts himself, disparaging the handling characteristics of an airplane that, elsewhere on the same page, he describes test pilots as praising.

The most fundamental problem with the book, however, is that it has no unifying theme or organizing principle. The title suggests a book about aircraft with fatally flawed or ill-conceived designs, and it covers many such machines. It also, however, includes a generous selection of aircraft that performed adequately but: a) Were designed for roles that turned out to be unnecessary; or b) Failed for reasons unrelated to their design; or even c) Just looked weird. The Bell RP-63 Kingcobra--a specially armored aircraft *designed* to be shot at in gunnery exercises--apparently makes the list because the concept now seems so outlandish. The assymetrical Blohm & Voss BV-141 performed well, but is (again, apparently) included to be snickered at. The famous "Vin Fiz," a Wright Model B that made the first flight across the USA in 1911, also gets an entry, but why? Apparently, because pilot Cal Rodgers crashed a lot along the way.

Shallow analysis, excessive cuteness, and nonexistent theme would be less galling if this was the first "Bad Aircraft Design" book on the market, but it is far from that. Bill Yenne's oversized "The World's Worst Aircraft" and James Gilbert's standard-sized book of the same title offer detailed history and serious analysis but *still* contain a great deal of humor. R. E. G. Davies' "Fallacies and Fantasies of Air Transport History" takes on a variety of flawed concepts (flying cars, dirigibiles, supersonic transports, commercial flying boats), skewering sacred cows with razor-sharp technical and economic arguments. Any of the three is a far better investment, and a far better education in bad aircraft design, than "The Wrong Stuff."

Recommended (and worth two stars) *only* for those deeply interested in the pictures and willing to ignore the text.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun look at aviation's less-than-greatest moments, December 23, 2003

By 

B. Pomeroy "bpomeroy54" (Sewell, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wrong Stuff?: Attempts at Flight Before (& After) the Wright Brothers (Hardcover)

Even if you're not an airplane buff, you can't help but get a kick out of "The Wrong Stuff." What at first blush appears to be a perverse look at aviation's flakier moments is really a homage to these none-too-successful aircraft. Some of the planes -- especially the pre-Wright Brothers attemps -- look absurd through 21st century eyes. But in many instances, these aircraft actually solved important aeronautical problems, and helped the Wrights and other successful flyers. And many of the post-Wright planes were "failures" for economic or political reasons rather than technical ones. Cases in point were some of the cutting-edge WWII planes that saw limited production only because they were developed too late in the war. Or, the thinking behind the planes was sound, but the builders were too far ahead of their time to have access to the technology to make their designs a reality.

If nothing else, "The Wrong Stuff" will give the reader a smile. With lots of pictures, it's an easy book to read. At most, the reader will come away with a renewed respect for successful pioneers such as the Wrights, and all those who take risks in designing and flying new aircraft.