Message posted by C. Reed on January 08, 2009 at 11:34:19 PST:

I picked up a copy of this book as a Christmas present for myself, and it _certainly_ met my considerable expectations, and then some. I’m as big a fan of Luft’46 as the next fellow, but a lot of that was really back of the envelope stuff that designers were churning out just to keep from being sent to fight the Russians; ie not a lot of hope that metal would actually be cut. The material in American Secret Projects: Fighters and Interceptors can be exotic at times, but represents types that could well have flown had contracts been issued to different companies, or if requirements had changed. No UFO type stuff here! This is a great book, just jammed with information and illustrations.

How to illustrate a book about aircraft that didn’t make it to the hardware stage? Well, many of these types did exist in form of manufacturer’s models, and these are depicted in page after page of photos, often shot from multiple angles to give you a better sense of what a design would have looked like in 1:1 scale. there are also _many_ 3--views! I’ve seen a ‘_few_ of the illustrations and models before, but they were generally in form of tiny reproductions in 1950s/60s magazines, without any context.

A full review and rundown at:

http://aviationheritage.blogspot.com

thanks

Chris

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