A different slant?

About ten years ago I acquired a large collection of just-post-world-war-one pictures mainly showing inside the works at Croydon. There was also a lot of build pictures for GAL Monospars. Some of these we used in a book from Arthur Ord-Hume.

Currently I’m in the middle of an ongoing project for a publisher doing a series of titles on the design, build and use of a number of different aircraft – Mosquito (which is just out), B-17, XB-70, B-24 and B-29 – which looks at each from a semi-technical viewpoint. I leave the ‘…there I was, flat on my back, nothing on the clock but the makers name’ to my good friend Martin Bowman!

Anyways, recently I acquired a large archive of aircraft build pictures that were taken just before and during World War Two and was thinking of one – or maybe a series of softback ‘picture books’ making use of the original captions (probably reproduced in italics) and then add some basic information as well.

I’ve put two demonstration examples of my current thinking (yes, I know that my captions are just a lift from wiki used for speed) here – the Battle caption would read:

Typical of scenes at several factories in large-scale production with military aircraft of stressed-skin construction are the Fairey Aviation Co.’s works at Stockport from which Battle single-engined bombers are flowing in a regenerating stream to R.A.F. squadrons. A salient characteristic of Battle production is the comprehensive jigging system warranted only by the larger size of the orders now in hand.

The Fairey Battle was a British single-engine light bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company in the late 1930s for the Royal Air Force. The Battle was powered by the same Rolls Royce piston engine that gave contemporary British fighters high performance; however, the Battle was weighed down with a three-man crew and a bomb load. Despite being a great improvement on the aircraft that preceded it, by the time it saw action it was slow, limited in range and highly vulnerable to both anti-aircraft fire and fighters with its single defensive .303 machine gun. During the so-called ‘phoney war’, the Fairey Battle recorded the first RAF aerial victory of the Second World War but by May 1940 was suffering heavy losses of well over 50% per mission. By the end of 1940 the Battle had been withdrawn from combat service and relegated to training units overseas. For such prewar promise, the Battle was one of the most disappointing of all RAF aircraft.

For the Hurricane:

Benefiting from the comparative simplicity of the fabric-covered girder structure which permits rapid installation of equipment. Hawker Aircraft are fast delivering Hurricane eight-gun fighters from their Kingston works. The Hurricane demonstrates how a well-tried structural principle can be adapted to modern military aircraft, making a fine showing against machines of advanced stressed-skin construction.

The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft for the Royal Air Force. Although largely overshadowed by the Supermarine Spitfire, the aircraft became renowned during the Battle of Britain, accounting for 60% of the RAF’s air victories in the battle, and served in all the major theatres of the Second World War.
The 1930s design evolved through several versions and adaptations, resulting in a series of aircraft which acted as interceptor-fighters, fighter-bombers (also called “Hurribombers”), and ground support aircraft. Further versions known as the Sea Hurricane had modifications which enabled operation from ships. Some were converted as catapult-launched convoy escorts, known as “Hurricats”. More than 14,000 Hurricanes were built by the end of 1944 (including about 1,200 converted to Sea Hurricanes and some 1,400 built in Canada by the Canada Car and Foundry).

Ideas/suggestions/comments are always welcome!