British Secret Projects 3: Fighters 1935-1950 Hardcover – 31 Oct. 2018

Excellent paper, better detailed and larger (original?) drawings should be recommended with regard to a desired next edition of this item!

Superb! Much of this excellent book has so much i have never seen or heard of before which makes it most interesting. An author who knows his subject well.

Utterly fantastic - although somewhat mollified that we hardly even built prototypes of most of them....

British Secret Projects 3: Fighters 1935-1950 covers lots of types that most have never heard of. With only a couple of hundred pages, it cannot go deep into details on every type - but you get the essentials. The drawings and photographs are of good quality but mainly on the small side. You'd need a series of 500 page volumes if you wanted much bigger. Personally the late WWII piston engined fighter designs that were to replace the Spitfire - but were overrrun by jets - are of the greatest interest.

Excellent book in series.

This book has brought together a huge number of projected aeroplanes with plenty of data and pictures I have never seen before. A must have for serious enthusiasts

Tony Buttler is a prolific aviation author having produced some 30 different titles, but if there is one subject area that he has become synonymous with, it is the Secret Projects series. These examine in detail the often bizarre designs for military aircraft which were proposed in the middle part of the 20th century, in most cases proceeding no further than the drawing board.The latest of this series, which has so far covered British, French and American projects, is the first part of an extensive revision of Buttler’s highly respected 2004 title ‘British Secret Projects - Fighters & Bombers 1935-1950’. Having singled fighters out for attention in this book, bombers will be the subject of a companion volume to follow as the next release in the series. New material includes a wealth of previously unpublished archive material, drawings and photos, backed by detailed appendices summarising all the projects, specifications and contracts encompassed.British Secret Projects 3 runs a total of 224 pages and is attractively laid out with almost every page of text carrying illustrations of one sort or another, including a number of nicely reproduced colour photographs. It is the kind of book that one can pick up and quickly becoming quite lost in, skipping from one outlandish proposal to another.The dates chosen for the book span the period from the end of the biplane fighter to the start of the jet era and through the crucial years of World War 2. When one looks and the progress made during that period, it is hard to believe such advances could be made in a mere 15 years. During this time-frame, the art of fighter design took huge leaps forward from fixed-gun and turret fighters, such as the well-known Spitfire and Defiant programmes, to the first generation of jet fighters. In most cases these types were designed specifically to meet the requirements of the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. The sheer number of proposals that were put forward, most of which would remain totally unknown were it not for publications such as this, is quite staggering. The outlandish nature of many of them is a real draw, and leaves the reader with a lot of “what if?” kind of thoughts.All is not quite perfect sadly - one rather unforgivable typographic error that has been allowed to escape whatever proof-reading process was undertaken is the title to Chapter 5 which reads “Turrey Fighters and Night Fighters”. This is not only emblazoned in large type across the lead page of the chapter, but also at the top of the 10 following right-hand pages of that chapter.Despite the odd glitch, the aviation historian and modeller alike will find a veritable feast of fascinating material in this book, which, given the standard already established in this series, unsurprisingly warrants a strong recommendation. Judging by the quality standard that has long been established by this series, further additions will be eagerly anticipated.

THE NAZIS DREAMED BIG AND LOST/

If you own the first edition you will be buying Volume Four to cover the Bombers which are now noticeably absent. (It’s okay. Spend the money, you’ll be happy you did.)Massively rewritten and revised, this is essentially a new standalone volume and not a revised edition.This new volume has approximately 15% more pages than the 2004 addition and as mentioned above deletes the bombers. The book is very comprehensive in covering British fighter development in terms of single engine, multi-engine, turret fighter (Chapter 5 is titled “Turrey Fighters and Night Fighters”.) Naval fighters, etc.Because the scope includes up to 1950, some Naval “fighters” such as the Blackburn Firebrand and the Westland Wyvern which have traditionally been relegated to foot notes in other books receive excellent coverage here under a heading of “Strike Fighter”.One chapter has been included to provide cursory coverage of engine, propeller, and other technology developments including a few interesting pictures of raw compressor forgings, propeller manufacturing, etc. It is probably the weakest chapter in the book and the reader would be better off finding other sources if they want to know more.Of the appendices, Appendix One British Fighter Projects Summary will probably of the most interest due to its coverage of projects by the small and “also ran” firms such as Airspeed, Folland, and Martin-Baker. This appendix also includes a few line drawings of some these proposed aircraft.Overall? This book is lavishly illustrated with photographs, line drawings, brochure art, and photographs of a few manufacturer style models. (Some are contemporary scratch-built.) The text does an excellent job of describing each aircraft and does so in a manner that gives the reader an understanding of the various factors and circumstances that were driving each development such as engineering or manufacturing resources, lack of materials, etc. My only disappointment was coverage of some of the ad-hoc Fleet Air Arm fighters such as the Sea Gladiator and Sea Hurricane were noticeable by their absence.Highly recommended without reservation and a must buy for anyone interested British aviation from the interwar to post-war period

Being German and having a strong interest in aviation I had read quite a few magazines and books on German "Secret" Weapons of World War II. When I stumbled across this book series I immediately got attracted to it and expected a similar package of knowledge. Finally something about "secret" British developments. Rockets? Missiles? Jet Fighter Projects? There must have been something there and now I would finally find out. Twin Spitfire? Futuristic Designs?At first I was very disappointed. The word secret seems to refer to the simple fact that the ministry of defence obviously did not spread their thoughts why which project was built or not built and what was offered to them by the manufacturers. It all looked not so secret and not so spectacular. I set the book aside, but a few days later (I had just completed my Hawker Typhon by Airfix) I picked it up again and decided to give it a go.And this is where I got fixed to it. It may not be spectacular as far as the type of projects is concerned but if you ever want to find out about the devlopment of British fighters andd the abandoned projects it is fascinating. It is very well researched and goes into meticoulous detail. There are plenty of photos, drawings and models of possible alterations of the existing fighters aswell as some designs that got dropped and never got into the air.As such I find this a fascinating wrap up, very detailed and very well made for anyone who wants to go beyond the usual picture books of Spitfires and Hurricanes, for anyone who wants to dig deeper.I find this a very recommendable book, hats off to the author who must have spent a lot of work on research and getting all these photos and drawings.And now, please excuse me, as a result I have bought all the books in this series and have to get back to reading.Thanks for a great book !!!

Il pacco è arrivato 2 giorni in anticipo su data prevista. Usato in ottime condizioni pari al nuovo. Sellers e delivery perfetti. Il testo ( in inglese) e ottimo ricco di informazioni dettagli ottimi trittici e foto in bianco e nero. Niente voi pindarici ma le request of proposal British e le risposte Delle industrie dalle più audaci alle più conservatrici 12 capitoli in totale che trattano i caccia i bombardieri gli "Idro" i jet. Completano il tutto tre appendici.

This book is a must-have for the aircraft enthusiast. Replete with diagrams, original plans, photographs, coloured art work and a very descriptive text, British Secret Bombers covers both prototypes and experimental aeroplanes from the pre World War II years until the Cold War. The book reveals just how far the British were prepared to go, in concept at least, to build bigger and better bombers to pound both Germany, or any other adversary for that matter. Some of the conceptual planes were of mammoth proportion, dwarfing both the Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax, the stable mates of British Bomber Command during the latter years of the Second World War. However brief its existence, one can see that the abortive Bristol Brabazon was born of the bigger-better concepts found in this book.The artistic work is beautifully limned and the text describes the evolution of aviation technology, which surges ahead during times of war. That the British Government was virtually broke by November 1941, forcing it to take the low road on design when compared to the Germans and Americans, suggests that most of these concepts were unrealizable. While design teams could keep up conceptually, Great Britain lacked the raw materials to make many of these concepts operational.Having said this, it is a fascinating read, with meticulous research and it is most certainly enlightening. Highly recommended!

The book attempts to added new secret and airframe manufacturer fighter aircraft designs made after 1935, on behalf of both the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. The work is sub-divided into eleven (11) chapters, plus three appendices, a bibliography, glossary and index to air reader understanding of the breath of British efforts to continually design better combat fighters and attack aircraft during the pre- and WW Two years.The author's Introduction to this work focuses on the date 1935 and afterwards, including jet fighter designs that were "in the works" at aeronautical firms as the war came to a close (Vampire, Venom, and their Navy counterparts), and thus the work covers through 1950 (five years after the war's end). The impact of the war's ending clearly impacted these more advanced designs, most of which were financial cancellations by the government of more R&D work - after all, the UK could not even afford the spare parts for American aircraft in RAF/RN service and immediately began scraping Lend-Lease aircraft, while retaining a food and clothing ration all the way through the years in this book and after!). Little wonder some of these interesting design were delayed in the post war period.There are two chapters on pre-war designs; two chapters on wartime Single- and Twin-Engine designs; a single chapter on Turret Fighters; two chapters on Naval Fighters, including strike (attack) aircraft designs; a chapter titled "Advances in Technology", another on Stand Alone Projects, and two concluding chapters on Jet Fighters (including on exclusively on the many Gloster firms designs.As the author notes in his introduction, it is unfortunate than many of those designs of this period have not survived either in museums or the constant mergers and re-organizations that have taken place with the British aerospace industry over the decades since the mid-40s.If you don't own the First Edition, this is a good volume to acquire if interested in British military aircraft and their designs; if you own the earlier edition, this is not an essential work to acquire, for the additions are not overly numerousand you could probably live without.