Early U.S. Jet Fighters: Proposals, Projects and Prototypes by Tony Buttler

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He's at it again! Due out in August according to Amazon (U.S.).
 

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Hi All!
The early history of American jet fighters begins 1940s, but I want to know when is the development of these early endings projects.
If you can find out what year this book covers?
 
Hi All.
For the gent who asked about Early US Jet Fighters, the text and drawings start with the very first jets for USAAF and Navy, then three chapters covering USAAF All-Weather Fighters, Penetration Fighters and Interceptors, four more with Navy Night Fighters, Day Fighters, Long Range Escort Fighters and Interceptors, some one-offs (including the Curtiss flying boat fighter), and then the first supersonic types for each service. It is open to discussion of course, but I consider that the jet fighter in USAF and USN service reached maturity with the arrival of supersonic performance - the F-102 and F8U.

Essentially it re-covers the first two chapters plus a couple of other sections of American Secret Projects, but greatly expanded with new material from NARA College Park. In fact taking the date range - 1944 to towards the mid-1950s, there is not much missing now in terms of proposals to design competitions.

Book was handed over 10 days ago - I think the plan is to have it on sale for Duxford Flying Legends, which I think is July 13th. However, please don't take that as certain because there is plenty that can go wrong before then.
If anyone is interested, I am currently planning to be there.
Best wishes to you all, Tony.
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Hi All!
Hi PaulMM (Overscan), thank you very much!
Yes I will buy the book
(In advance if you can show the Index)
 
Something very strange about the dates: Crecy claims the book will be available 17 February (yes, on a Sunday!), Amazon.uk is saying 30 June and Amazon.com is saying 15 August. Seems a bit odd.....
 
Tony is very close to delivery of the finished book to the publisher but it is normally several months from that point until publication.
 
Can we hope that this is a first volume in a new collection of books that will take groups of chapters in ASP and expand them into a full, more detailed book?

Also, in what directions does this book expand the first two chapters in ASP fighters? new projects, more details on already presented projects or both?
 
Hi All.
This particular book is a one off to make use of a lot more information now available to, in the main, fill the gaps left by the first two chapters of ASP: Fighters. And not just designs - we found some good material at NARA on the USAF Penetration Fighter fly-off competition, while the British National Archives have reports made by A&AEE and RAE staff which also give nice little insights into what these early American jets were like. There is also some new flying boat fighter material and, as I think I said, the final two chapters look at the first supersonic competitions for the AF and Navy.
The Appendices also cover:
Appendix One. Air Force and Navy Combat Aircraft Test Bases
Appendix Two. American Fighter Aircraft Designers
Appendix Three. A Concept for In-Flight Refuelling
Appendix Four. What Were They Like?
Appendix Five. American Jet Fighter Engine Manufacturers
I guess that some of the Appendices cover items that were well known in the US, but not so much in the UK.

In my field now - UK and US Fighters/Bombers from the mid-1930s to the 1980s/90s - there is not much left to publish on unbuilt projects. What new bits and pieces I have will I think be better served by magazine articles. For example, I have recently submitted an article to The Aviation Historian on the Grumman Intruder design competition - here again an expansion of the coverage in ASP: Bombers.


Tony Buttler.
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To expand on what Tony said - Tony's work has concentrated on unbuilt designs that were seriously proposed for competitions. Ones that received a good amount of work, and that might have been built instead of the better known winners if the judging criteria had been slightly different. In other words, largely the "runners up" to known aircraft.

There are many other designs not yet published in a volume of Secret Projects - in some instances published on this site - but these often amount to little more than a single drawing, a private venture long since discarded, or a version of a design long superseded by a better one. Sometimes these are aesthetically pleasing, but totally impractical and were abandoned as soon as they were drawn for very sound reasons. Sometimes dozens or hundreds of configurations were studied for one programme, and we probably don't need to publish them all.

Sometimes more information may come to light on a specific competition, but that is usually an expansion of what is published already and is better suited to a magazine article.

For me personally, the whole process of the evolution of a design from first sketch to finished article can also be interesting - I would love an article on the how the McDonnell-Douglas F-15 evolved to its final configuration for instance. Funnily enough, I have two books which do that for the Su-27, and it is fascinating. Not everyone would agree.
 
I agree 100%
I love books full of preliminary designs!
 
pometablava said:
I agree 100%
I love books full of preliminary designs!
Click to expand...

Seconded. Detailed evolution of a design and the whys and hows of what worked and what didn't at each stage is a fascinating approach.
 
Hi All.
I have today received an advance copy of "Early US Jet Fighters: Proposals, Projects and Prototypes" and I must say that I am really pleased with the production and layout. I hope those of you who are interested in it will think so as well - I am guessing that the bulk shipment will be a month or so away as yet.
Please remember, this book covers some of the ground in US Secret Projects but in more depth and with plenty of new discoveries.
Tony.
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I just got my copy today, and while there is a lot of good stuff in there, I'm a bit taken aback by some of the decisions that were made regarding drawings.

A lot of original factory drawings are reproduced in a fairly small size, and because of their age, many of these are nearly completely unreadable. I think it would have been better to copy these and clean them up rather than reproduce the original images in the name of authenticity.

As for the original color side views that are a staple of Hikoki works these days, I notice that some of the USAF tail serials are depicted incorrectly. For instance, in the view of the Convair fighter on page 77, the serial is shown as 46-527, which would be the actual serial number, but following standard practice, it would have appeared on the airplane as 6527. I know this may seem nit-picking, but when buying a book at this price, one would expect a little better proofreading.

(Speaking of proofreading, there is a caption on page 141 ("The F9F-8 label is wrong. Please remove it from the photo") that clearly was not supposed to appear in print!)

I was also surprised to find that the two color side views shown on the jacket (which do not appear in the cover illustration shown above) do not appear in the book itself, and unfortunately are unidentified. The one on the front is identified on the aircraft as an "F4D-1" but clearly pre-dates the Skyray that eventually received that designation; I had to do some digging to find out that it is actually a view of the Douglas model 1163 that is described on page 118; this should have been pointed out on the front inside flap of the jacket. The one on the back appears to be the McDonnell model 91 described on page 175, but again that should have been pointed out on the rear inside flap.

An additional color side view on the front title page is described as an F16C-1 but it would have been nice to have indicated that its description appeared on page 108 of the book. (The book has a decent index, but "F16C" does not appear in it.)

I hate to have to bring things like this up, but it would have been nicer if all of these had been edited out before the book made it into print. As I said, there is a lot of good in the book, but it could have been even better with a little more diligence.
 
My personal opinions only -

I haven't seen this book, but the issues you mention sounds like the fault of the publishers rather than the author unfortunately.

Authors rarely get much say in this stuff - they provide text (Word doc) and images(scanned or physical) and thats it. Chris Gibson draws his own 3 views and gets his layouts done by his 3D artist.

Editing and/or redrawing drawings is very expensive unless you do it yourself. Inadequate proofing - this is nothing new, the later Midland Counties books were similar. Jared's book (The Incredible Attack Aircraft of the USS United States, 1948–1949) from Schiffer had lots of very faint drawings.

Cost cutting - these kind of books are not huge sellers, so publishers don't want to spend too much on this stuff. Proofreaders, skilled graphics professionals, all cost money.

Its very frustrating as a customer, but also very frustrating as an author because you have so little control.
 
Response from Tony:

Hi All.
My god - you guys are quick off the mark. I only heard yesterday (Monday) that the shipment had arrived from the printers last Friday.
I had an advance copy a few weeks ago and when I quickly checked through it everything looked pretty good. It was only when I had time to look more closely that I realised that some of the drawings were too small. When I did my proof reading and checking it was on a larger computer screen and they had looked OK, but on the page I can see that certainly in a few cases they are really too small, and the reproduction of copied discoloured originals has not been good with a couple of Goodyear efforts. Sorry guys - you can blame me totally for this - I should have picked up on it.

At this point, if you can highlight the worst half dozen please we might be able to enlarge them if we go to a second edition (but of course we need to sell the first edition to do that). I will just add another point here because the question of drawings being too small has been raised in the past with the Secret Projects series. Please don't forget that if you make drawings very large - say full page - then you have a high percentage of 'white paper' throughout the book with nothing on it, and other reviewers might not be happy with that. This can be OK for the specialist privately-produced books that for example Jared has done so well, but Crecy/Hikoki is a mainstream publisher and obviously has to be sure that the books will sell. It is in part a question simply of economics.

As regards the caption on page 141, my heart sank when I saw that had got through. It was of course an instruction and I think three other proof readers and myself all missed it. Once again, my apologies.

Looking at the artworks, that is an area about which I know relatively little but Crecy do like to put them in and I was asked to sort out a selection for turning into colour side-views. Unfortunately I do not know the colour scheme/camouflage/markings scene well enough to be sure I can pick up every error.

My thanks to 'gatoraptor' for pointing these flaws out (I hope there are not too many more waiting to come to the surface) and apologise for allowing them to get through. I hope they will not detract from the contents of the book.

Very best wishes,
Tony.
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I have just received Tony Buttler's latest....
Dispite the minor errors due to quick proof reading it's a true goldmine of info.
In my humble opinion ,it beats every thing about early U.S. jetfighters I ever have seen
in printed form . (and that is quite a lot)
Thanks Tony.You did it again..
 
Got my copy "down under" at last.

Haven't had a chance to read all it through, but a quick perusal suggests its a great book.

Layout could have been better as has been commented on before. I've done some analysis and I think I've identified the problem.

Though the page size is roughly similar to Secret Projects series the text is in a significantly larger font size and is only two columns not three, with significant white space outside the outer column. This is the same basic layout as Vulcan's Hammer however, which was generally praised for its layout, so in itself this isn't an issue.

In the Secret Projects book, images are very standardised; either full page width or two columns wide which translates to roughly 125mm for small images and 188mm for larger images.

In Vulcan's Hammer, with the same two column layout as Early US Jet Fighters, images span either full page (180mm), two columns (145mm) or outer column + white space (104mm). No images span one column only (70mm).

In Early US Jet Fighters, a number of images are just one column wide (70mm). Some of the drawings simply can't be appreciated at this size. What annoys me from a design perspective is many of the pages where a drawing is too small have free white space outside the outer column; simply moving the image to the outer column and then extending image width over the white space (to 104mm) would have increased image size 67% without increasing page count at all.

I think its something for the publisher to consider carefully for any future Crecy / Hikoki publications.

These issues are relatively minor though and should not dissuade you from buying this book nor be allowed to detract from its awesomeness. If you are at all interested in the early jet fighter era this is really fascinating stuff and justifies its purchase even if you own Tony's American Secret Projects : Jet Fighters book by presenting the reader with a plethora of new material.

Just be prepared to squint at times.
 
I agree about complains exposed here but the book is a gold mine of info and is full of unbuilt designs. Tony Buttler exposition is clear and organized. An easy way to learn History.

Early US Jet Fighters, as it has been said is a complementary volume to US Secretprojects Fighters thanks to the great amount of information and aircraft designs added in this volume. I'm working in a table where I combine data from both books for a better understanding of the story. The question is I'm finding differences.
For instance, on the Army Air Force All Weather Fighter I see Douglas Model 1011 similar in appearance to XB-42 light bomber at Early US Jet Fighters. At American Secret Projects we see that Douglas design was based of which eventualy went to production as F3D Skynight for the USN. Why is this project is omitted on Early US Jet Fighters since, I think, this work is a more comprehensive compendium?.
 

The 'F3D Skyknight' all-weather fighter in ASP was just plain wrong - that is I'm afraid the problem with using published sources when nothing else is available! In contrast the 1011 was detailed in original documents.

Also, I need to ask a question please. Does the membership think that 'Early US Jet Bombers' might be worth doing? There is some new material which has been discovered since ASP: Bombers was completed but nothing like the amount that has just gone into fighters. If I can find a lot more material for programmes such as MX948 then it might be worth considering, but it is you guys who pay the money and I need to get some opinions on this because the publisher is asking.
The book would be 3-4 years away of course, but personally I have my doubts.

Many thanks indeed.

Very best wishes,


Tony.
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I think new publisher would consider second edition of US Bombers with new stuff added (as prices for the first edition at the used books stores start from USD 222, new goes for USD 900)
 
I received my copy of Early U.S. Jet Fighters and spent most of the weekend with it. This is a truly excellent volume, on many levels. As someone who grew up with Putnam, Jane's and similarly crammed British books, I was not bothered by the size of the drawings, which are typically larger. Some very small type might be hard to read on occasion, but overall that was not a problem for me.

I feel this book is even better researched and organized than Buttler's previous volumes -- nothing beats practice, I suppose. The stellar list of contributors includes Tim Brown and his excellent color profiles, the new layout flows much better, and the quality of Hikoki Publications is as good as it gets. Of course, the subject matter is one of my favorites: a time and place where the best engineers in the world were given nearly unlimited resources to drive aviation progress at an unprecedented pace. Early U.S. Jet Fighters takes you back to this golden age and puts all the pieces together with clarity and accuracy, with a very large amount of previously unknown material.

To answer a previous post, yes, I would definitely like to see a companion volume of Early U.S. Jet Bombers. If Tony Buttler doesn't do it, it will probably never get done.
 
Early US jet bombers would be great for me.

And what about US fighters and bombers projects 1926-1945...can we dream about it?
 
Early US jet bombers would be a very welcomed addition to my collection.

Beside that, since US secret project has already been withdrawn, a new expanded edition would be welcomed too. Perhaps in a two volume format like the earlier "Luftwaffe secret projects" series.
One volume about strategic bombers (and perhaps seaplanes) and another one about ground attack and special purpose aircraft.
Given the size of the US industry a two volume would be more suitable (by the way BSP and ASP bombers were both 224 pages long, but of course the US programs must have been way larger that the UK ones)

best
F_T
 
I just got a B&N card from 'ol Saint Nick! Maybe this can tide me over till the WW2 volume hits the shelves! B)
 

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