User:TheLongTone/Library

Books are like mice Once there are a couple in the house, there's no getting rid of the papery little buggers.

Ex Libris

• Boff, C. Boy's Book of Flying. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1937
• Bowood, R. with ilustrations by Ayton, R. The Story of Flight Loughborough: Ladybird, 1960
• Fellowes, P.F.M. (ed) Britain's Wonderful Air Force. London: Odhams, (undated, 1942?)
• Golding, H. (ed) The Wonder Book of Aircraft. London: Ward Lock & Co, 1933
• Jackson, G. Gibbard The World's Aeroplanes and Airships. London: Samson Low, Marston & Co,1930
• Sims, C.A. British Aircraft Illusrated. London: A & C Black, 1931
• Walker, Sydney F. Aviation: its Principles, its Present and Future. London: T.C. and E.C. Jack, 1912

Putnam Publications

An encounter with British Aircraft 1809-1914 at an early age had a great influence on me. I only possess the below,

• Gray and Thetford, German Aicraft of the First World War. London: Putnam, 1962
• Lewis, Peter. British Aircraft 1809-1914. London: Putnam, 1962
• Weyl, A.R, Fokker: The Creative Years. London: Putnam, 1965
• Jackson A.J. De Havilland Aircraft since 1915. London: Putnam, 1965
• Barnes C.H. Bristol Aircraft Since 1910London: Putnam, 1965
• Barnes C.H. Handley Page Aircraft London: Putnam, 1965
• London, P.Saunders and Saro
• Francis K MasonThe British Fighter since 1912 Slapped wrist to Putnam for the duplicated title, its like bloody aircraft numbers.
• British Naval Aircraft
• U.S Navy Aircraft

Leaving only Airspeed, Armstrong Whitworth, Avro, Blackburn, Boulton Paul, English Electric, Gloster, Hawker, Miles, Parnall, Short Bros, Supermarine, Vickers, Westland... that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Thank the lord for public libraries. (How could I have missed Sopwith out?) I used to have The German Giants, but I lent it to somebody. Mistake.

General Aviation

• Gibbs-Smith, C.H. The Rebirth of European Aviation. London: HMSO,1974 ISBN 0 11 290180 8 :Painstakingly researched to say the least (i.e mind-numbingly dull). There is something lacking in Gibbs-Smith qua aviation historian. At root he is an art historian: there is something most peculiar about an aviation historian who failed to become interested in flight until he was over thirty. The man grew up during the glory years of the Hendon air displays. The 1963 correspondance with Harald Penrose in Flight does nothing for one's opinion of him, either. A mean-minded bean counter. As an artist I don't have much time for art historians in general, incidentally, although there are exceptions)
• Gibbs-Smith, C.H. Aviation: An Historical Survey. London, NMSI, 2008. ISBN 1 900747 52 9
• Hallion, Richard P. Taking Flight. New York: Oxford University Press 2003. ISBN 0 19516035 5
• Howard, Fred 'Wilbur and Orville: The Story of the Wright Brotheres. London: Hale,1988 ISBN 0 7090 3244 7
• Kelly, Frederick C. (ed) Miracle at Kitty Hawk: The letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Da Capo, 2003. ISBN 0 306 81203 7 :(Miracle, schmiracle. If any technological development was the result of a determined and methodical scientific approach to a problem, its the acheivements of the Wright Brothers. Equal first place in the pantheon with Henri Matisse)
• Mitchell, Gordon R.J. Mitchell: Schooldays to Spitfire. Stroud, Tempus, 2002. ISBN 0 7524 23223 3
• Munson,Kenneth The Pocket Encyclopedia of World Aircrft in Colour: Pioneer Aircraft 1903-1914London, Blandford, 1969

This is the kind of book I generally have little time (or space) for: 'Pocket Encyclopedia' is surely an oxymoron. This is certainly not encyclopedic, and has some eccentric inclusions (eg the Bland Mayfly) and omissions. What is there is solid, though: and the real value of the book is not the list of aircraft, but the short sections on aviators & manufacturers.

• Moore, J The Fleet Air Arm: A Short History of its History and Achievments London: Chapman and Hall, 1943.
• Nicholl, G.W.R. The Supermarine Walrus: The Story of a Unique Aircraft. London, G.T. Foulis, 1966. The mighty Shagbat. I so want one of these, it's my all-time favorite aircraft. The DH 88 is prettier, but the Steam Pigeon a lot more useful.
• Opdycke, Leonard E. French Aeroplanes Before the Great War Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1999. ISBN 0 7643 0752 5

Fiction

The purpose of soap operas is to provide an ample supply of unbearable people who, unlike those in "real life", can be eliminated at the push of a button. I don't do television, so I read fiction.....

• Flying Dutchman by Anton Fokker: The best thing about this book is the binding: I have the Penguin edition of 1934. A flying Penguin, their words. It's too fragile to give it the good fling across the room it deserves.
• Men, women and 10,000 kites (Mes dix mille cerfs-volants) Gabriel Voisin. :As Dorothy Parker said of another tendentious volume, not a book to be put aside lightly....rather one to be hurled with great force. Like Fokker's memoir, a valuable insight into the character of the subject.