Early US Jet Fighters: Proposals, Projects and Prototypes by Tony Buttler

Just noticed on Amazon. Release date June 2013.

God bless you Tony Buttler for that books I always wanted to read!

PaulMM (Overscan) said:

There are plans for WW2 but I cannot say any more because of the contract situation. It is very early days but fingers crossed something will happen in the next 2-3 years. There is a lot of research to do.
Very best wishes to you all. Tony.

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By which time my son should hopefully be just old enough to be trusted with the results without damaging the crap out of them. Maybe little sister as well, but we'll see how that goes.

I have a question along these lines-
What do you as a cutoff point for "manufacturer"? Pre-WWII, some small startup with no accomplishments could still come up with credible proposals.

May have to pick that one up. Now if we could only get an ASP: Hypersonics volume. I'm so there. I'd buy both for a dollar!

XP67_Moonbat said:

May have to pick that one up. Now if we could only get an ASP: Hypersonics volume. I'm so there. I'd buy both for a dollar!

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I agree - US Hypersonics, Ramjets and Missiles would be like manna from heaven, especially if there was a lot of fleshed-out detail on the early guided missile projects (e.g. Oriole) and some of the others (e.g. Active Sparrow II) that never quite made the cut and the test vehicles. Of course in the case of Talos, Ramjet and Missile are intimately fused, because probably no other missile (certainly none that ever saw wartime combat use) was so dependent on the leading edge of research into both. Plus the US missiles have all seen extensive combat use, the digestion of the lessons of which can be a point of discussion, whereas purely British ones (except for Sea Dart and Sea Wolf) never really got the chance to prove themselves "live" (for which, given their intended employment, we should perhaps be thankful).


Likewise for the USSR, although Yefim Gordon's book on post-WW2 Soviet/Russian aircraft weapons already gives a fair bit of detail on the air-launched missiles that I certainly never knew before!

Talking about Buttler's forthcoming book on early American combat jets, I can't believe that Buttler himself has to write another book on this subject given that so much has been written about the early experimental US jet fighters of the post-WW2 era.

US Hypersonics, Ramjets and Missiles?

See attached.

Chris

Chris,

You're gonna set tongues wagging for that book. I know mine is!

Thank you Paul, for the clarification. Without it, Chris made no sense whatsoever to us people across the pond.

Kobayashi Maru might be a bit too dramatic?

I feel I've hijacked this thread, so Mods please move to somewhere relevant - "books we'd like to see" perhaps?

My view is that a single volume on US hypersonics, missiles and ramjets would be a great project to embark on, but be, by commercial necessity, too brief and wouldn't meet expectations. I binned a couple chapters on ATGWs for BSP4 so I'm aware of the commercial side of this. Splitting the US HR+M up would also make it far too niche, even for the likes of me.

I think Sean O'Connor's 'Falcon Family' is great and a fine example of how the US Missiles should be covered, but I'm sure Sean will agree that it was a huge undertaking for what was one project. Andreas' webpages already do a fine job on US missiles. A book that was just a "Pic and para" job could be done, but I doubt that would come up to scratch nor would it add anything to what Andreas has already done. Scott has also contributed much and deserves recognition for his innovative methods in widening our knowledge.

As I discovered when I covered Skybolt in Vulcan's Hammer, while the British saw it as a massive undertaking to fit Skybolt to Vulcan, Skybolt itself was viewed pretty much as a sideshow by the Americans, who asked for it to be scrapped year after year. If Skybolt was a sideshow, how much work would be required to cover the major missile projects in the depth we want?

So...my view is that Sean has set the standard for US missile books and that should be the way forward. Create more books like Sean's and eventually you'll have a collection that could be put together and you'd have your book. Scott has shown that there is the material and people want it in readily available form. Stargazer et al have done similar for the designations but from my point of view that needs put together in a compilation to be really useful.

Whenever anyone asks me for help or material I state one proviso: Do something with it, don't treat it like a stamp collection. It took me 10+ years to get the material in BSP4 published, but we are currently in a golden age of publishing, ebooks present a great opportunity, so grab it and do something with all that stuff you have stashed in folders and hard drives. There's a lot of people on this forum with the material and the knowledge. Split the work up, cover separate areas, then put it all together. No money in it, but Sean didn't charge a penny for his Falcon book. The professional writer won't do it, so if you want it so badly, get after it yourselves.

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to produce US HR+M.

I'll get me coat.

Chris

PS Painting the Forth Bridge has been finished, with the same techniques used to paint oil platforms. Should be 15 years before it needs done again.