American Combat Aircraft - A History in Patents

If you remember my review of Speculative Warplane Designs - A History in Patents, I was fascinated by the range of designs from the early days of flight to very recent times. In that title were designs that, in most cases, never got off the drawing board.

In this new release, Dataview Publishing has obtained patent information on aircraft that (in most cases) did get off the ground. There are a number in here that didn't get past prototype stage, but there are many others that you'll recognize as well.

As a modeler's reference, the drawings in this title are illustrative, not necessarily detailed three-views and won't really help with researching specific details of a design.

As an aviation historian's reference, this title is a gold mine. Many of the designs have the patent narrative describing the innovative features of each design, but what is also interesting is the supporting information: chief designer, secondary designer (if any), date of patent, date filed, etc. There are a few aircraft in here that were mere footnotes in aviation history, but others still raise an eyebrow.

There are a few designs that were filed in the late 1980s for aircraft that didn't get built but were contenders for an advanced fighter program. There are a couple newer than that which were obviously developed for a yet-to-be-unclassified program, though we won't likely know if any of these advanced concepts ever got off the drawing board for some time to come.

What is also interesting to the historian are the aircraft NOT published in this title. The Twin Mustang is here, but not the P-51. The B-2, YF-23 are here, but not the YF-22. It makes for an interesting starting point to see what designs were never patented, which may not yet be available for publication, and which may simply have been overlooked.

The companies covered in this title include:

• Bell
• Boeing
• Convair
• Curtiss
• Douglas
• Fairchild
• Grumman
• Lockheed
• Martin
• McDonnell
• Northrop
• Republic
• Rockwell
• Vought

This title is available in electronically in Adobe Acrobat(tm) format. You can purchase the CD for $9.99 or download it directly from the publisher for only $1.99.

This title is available directly from the publisher at Dataview Publications (www.dataviewbooks.com).

My sincere thanks to Dataview Publications for this review sample!