F3H Demon in Detail and Scale Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Detail and Scale is back and high-tech as well. Those of us who've been modeling for a few years (decades) will have one or more of these essential titles in our libraries to help understand the differences between aircraft variants of a given subject and how to make our own models more accurate. The problem with the 'analog' references were many: the author invariably left tons of material out of the book due to limitations of page count; great reference photos were mere postage stamps in final copy; and, once a title was released, it was finished.

Here is the first title in this new electronic series, the F3H Demon. The title is published in iBook (iPad/iPhone) and Kindle formats using the latest in ebook authoring tools. What does that mean to you?

• You can use menu hyperlinks to jump straight to a section of interest
• You can expand photos and drawings to full-screen
• You can zoom in on details in photos and drawings for a closer look
• You can search for specific text within the title
• You can bookmark items of interest
• You can highlight and annotate the book with your own notes

In this title, the author starts off with the history of radar and its employment with night fighters and interceptors from World War II into the 1950s. This is an essential strand of history as the F3H Demon was developed as one of the first radar-equipped fighters that could employ the first radar-guided missile - the Sparrow. Given the success of the Sparrow (eventually) and radar, the Demon's story should be rather uneventful, but such was not the case.

Coverage of the subject starts with the F3H-1N - while the aircraft and avionics were promising, the Westinghouse J40 engine was very unreliable leading to all F3H-1s to be grounded wherever in the world they were and never to be flown again. The Navy recognized the potential of the Demon and the story gets more interesting as a replacement engine is sought, so for all of you who wondered why the Demon didn't receive the J57 like most other aircraft of the day, the author provides some interesting insight.

Because this title is in electronic form, you receive all of that good information that might have been lost in hardcopy format. This title is 297 pages with over 340 photos and over 50 illustrations. Coverage includes:

• Developmental History
• Demon Variants
• F3H Demon Pilot's Report 'Demon Daze'
• A Demon Restoration
• Demon Details
• Squadrons, Deployments, and Markings
• Modeler's Section

One aspect of these electronic titles that I really appreciate is that my iPad is the same size and weight no matter how many are loaded at any given time. This allows me the flexibility to access the information more interactively on the work bench and still allow me to read while on travel (waiting on flights, etc.). With all of the great information packed into this new interactive title, you're still able to purchase this at a very low price!

For more information about this and other titles, visit their website.

Definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Detail & Scale for this review copy.