Books about the U.S. post-war aerospace industry ?

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Pfft

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Hello everyone,

I'm trying to think of Christmas presents for my dad, and one thing he has expressed interest in is some book telling the story about American military aircraft companies in the post-war period. He says he has seen some about specific companies, but would really like to read about general developments in the industry, maybe comparing several companies to each other.

Do any of you have any suggestions along those lines? Many thanks in advance!
 
Not particularly new and not about US industry specifically, three books from the Putnam History of Aircraft series from 2003:

The Modern War Machine: Military Aviation since 1945 mostly about operational stuff
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Faster, Further, Higher - Leading-edge Aviation Technology since 1945 more about technology
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Modern Air Transport: Worldwide Air Transport from 1945 to the Present for completeness' sake
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The books are not really about comparing companies, but will give you a nice overview of developments in general.
 
I concur, that it probably is difficult to find a comparison of companies, that doesn't refer to
a specific class of aircraft, e.g. fighters, bombers and so on. I think, I saw a comparison of the
major US aircraft manufacturers in the catalogue of the states library, Berlin ... but it was a
collection of business figures, probably not what you are looking for !
As an addition to the titles already proposed by Arjen, here's a book I gave my dad for Xmas
(no, no, not with the intention to read it by myself, of course ... ::) ), because he had expressed
interest in all those US transports, he had seen over Berlin since the time of the Berlin Airlift.
(Nicholas M.Williams, "Aircraft of the United States' Military Air Transport Service", Midland)
 

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Thanks for all the replies! I guess there isn't any book that exactly fits the description, too bad, but the ones you mentioned also seem interesting, I might get one of those.
 
One thing that might be in the ballpark is Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California (http://amzn.com/0873282493). It's a series of essays covering both the growth of the aerospace industry in So Cal and the evolution of the region in response. It was recently published and I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks quite interesting. Our man blackstar penned an essay for it as well.
 
Hi Pfft - I've decided to tackle such a book. -SP

Post-War U.S. Aircraft Factory Production
U.S. Air Force Fixed-Wing Aircraft, Missiles and Rockets, 1946 to 2016
 
That's probably a herculean task ! Any idea, how many volumes it will have ? ;)
 
Wow, "I will write this book" is a way more helpful response than I had anticipated. :) I look forward to it!
 
Oh, I wanted to make one more update here. Via a reference from Blue Sky Metropolis (thank you George Allegrezza!), my dad found the book Pushing the Envelope: The American Aircraft Industry by Donald M Pattillo (http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Envelope-American-Aircraft-Industry/dp/0472086715#), which seems to be very on topic.
 

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