Flugzeuge (2. WK) - Deutschland: Bücher - Luftwaffe (4/4)

This book is a meticulously researched review of the many German, Italian and Japanese aircraft taken to Allied countries or flown by the Allies during or after the Second World War. The hsitory of these captured aircraft has been extensively researched and the book is copiously illustrated by an unrivalled selection of around 500 photographs, gleaned from around the world.

The book's chapters are devoted to chronological themes describing the individual histories of each aircraft and the units which flew them in the USA or France or in specific theatres of war, with a final chapter covering the use made of aircraft in other countries.
Coverage includes civilian aircraft and sailplanes as well as military types; post-war production of German designs and details of surviving aircraft in museums. Appendices and indexes cover designation and marking systems, information sources and other useful background.

The UK chapters include coverage of RAF Farnborough, 1426 (EA) Flight, individual squadrons, experimental organisations and manufacturers, the ATAIU in Malaya and the little-known Gremlin Task Force.
US chapters deal with evaluation at Wright Field, Freeman Field and in Europe by Watson's Whizzers, by the US Navy TAIC at Anacostia, ATAIUs in Australia and the Phillippines and many individual units.
The book also includes the most complete record published of British 'Air Min' and USAAF 'FE' and 'T2' aircraft numbering systems.

This new edition of an acclaimed title first published nearly thirty years ago has been fully revised and updated. The opportunity has been taken to use modern technology to improve the quality of the images and many new photos uncovered since the original publication have been included.

The growth in size, lethality, and technology of the German Luftwaffe was of concern to some defense planners in the United States before American entry into the war. Learning about the Luftwaffe became a significant effort once the conflict broke out in Europe.
From defectors with German aircraft to battlefield trophies and combat crew reports, the race to understand German aero technology took on sometimes heroic proportions.

After the war, German technology infused American aerospace developments in many ways: German ribbon parachutes were evaluated for high-speed bailouts; sweptwing leading edge slat technology benefited the F-86 Sabre; overall comprehension of sweptwing benefits to fast jet aircraft was validated; pulse jet V1s and supersonic V2 rockets boosted American drone weapon, ballistic missile, and space exploration efforts.

In this volume Frederick A. Johnsen traces that path of discovery.

During more than two decades of uninterrupted flying Eric 'Winkle' Brown enjoyed the most extraordinary career of any test pilot and no pilot has a logbook with list a greater variety of aircraft types flown.
The first naval officer to head the élite Aerodynamics Flight at the world renowned Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, `Winkle` Brown fulfilled his childhood ambition to fly German aircraft. Indeed, he was to fly no fewer than fifty-five individual German aircraft types, ranging from such exotic creations as the push-and-pull Dornier Do 335 and the remarkable little Heinkel He 162 Volksjager to the highly innovative combat types that were entering the inventory of the Luftwaffe shortly before the demise of Germany's Third Reich.
'Winkle' Brown also interrogated many of the leading German wartime aviation personalities, such as Willy Messerschmitt, Ernst Heinkel, Kurt Tank and Hanna Reitsch.

From his unique knowledge of German aviation, 'Winkle' Brown has selected the most important and most promising aircraft employed by the Luftwaffe and those evolved for that air arm in Germany during World War II - the true wings of the Luftwaffe.
He describes their background and characteristics, and together with over 200 photographs, colour profiles and sectional drawings provides an in-depth assessment of the contribution made to the annals of military aviation in the late 1930s and early 1940s by an aircraft industry that proved itself truly second to none in ingenuity.

No airforce in the Second World War would make more use of captured planes than the Luftwaffe. With this in mind, Jean-Louis Roba has undergone a considerable amount of work in tracking down hundreds of aircraft used by the Luftwaffe and illustrating their uses, careers and eventual fates.

The book examines the full history of foreign planes in the Luftwaffe, from its inception in the prewar years to the end of the Second World War. More than just an account of the Luftwaffe's use of captured aircraft, the book debunks myths about how prepared the Germans were for war in 1939, and shows how important even such an unreliable source of supplies as captured planes would become to the Luftwaffe.

Translated into English for the first time, Roba's investigative work is supported by over a hundred pictures of the planes themselves, and gives a rare opportunity to see British and American planes repainted in German colours and symbols.