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U.S. Naval Air Superiority: Development of Shipborne Jet Fighters 1943-1962
When World War II came to a close, piston-powered fighter aircraft were at their zenith and Navy fighters, such as the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought Corsair dominated the skies over the Pacific. As these fighter designs reached their peak, a new propulsion technology was being developed that held great promise. When introduced, the first jet aircraft were underpowered, and in many ways inferior to propeller-driven aircraft of the time. Naval Air Superiority examines the Navy's internal struggle to adapt the jet engine to its style of warfare as well as the development and evolution of carrier-borne fighters, their airframes and engines, from the closing days of World War II through Vietnam.
To operate a fighter from the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier requires a number of significant design considerations including requirements for catapult launching, arrested landings, payload, and weaponry. For the first time, Naval Air Superiority profiles the turbulent design and development stage of the Navy's carrier-based jet fighter program and discusses the evolution and development of aircraft with a flight envelope ranging from slow-carrier approaches to supersonic intercepts. This book looks at successful designs, such as the Fury, Banshee, Crusader, and Phantom II, to the also-rans, like the Fireball, Demon, Pirate, and Cutlass - aircraft developed when the Navy's needs were measured against contractor and political demands and against the limits of the evolving engine and aerodynamic technologies of the day.
This book includes engine cut-aways, aircraft comparison diagrams, and details the safety improvements made to aircraft carriers to enable higher speed and highgross weight jet operations.
To operate a fighter from the pitching deck of an aircraft carrier requires a number of significant design considerations including requirements for catapult launching, arrested landings, payload, and weaponry. For the first time, Naval Air Superiority profiles the turbulent design and development stage of the Navy's carrier-based jet fighter program and discusses the evolution and development of aircraft with a flight envelope ranging from slow-carrier approaches to supersonic intercepts. This book looks at successful designs, such as the Fury, Banshee, Crusader, and Phantom II, to the also-rans, like the Fireball, Demon, Pirate, and Cutlass - aircraft developed when the Navy's needs were measured against contractor and political demands and against the limits of the evolving engine and aerodynamic technologies of the day.
This book includes engine cut-aways, aircraft comparison diagrams, and details the safety improvements made to aircraft carriers to enable higher speed and highgross weight jet operations.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published February 15, 2008
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December 1, 2013
Among technical histories of aviation, this one deserves credit for its broad scope. For Thomason does not discuss carrier aircraft in isolation, but in relation to the evolving technical features of the aircraft carriers. This produces fascinating complexities, such as the relation between the design of aircraft's landing gears and that of the barriers designed to stop them in an emergency.
Of the aircraft themselves, Thomason's account is uneven in level of detail. Maybe it is driven by what he found in his research, maybe simply by personal interest. The quality of the result is high, but it may not be what every reader expects. Thomason's bias seems towards failures -- The highly interesting (but not very positive) stories of the F7U Cutlass and F10F Jaguar are told in great detail,
The book is not flawless: Errors in the formatting of the text blemish the first chapters. They don't detract from the intelligibility of the text but make for uncomfortable reading, and would have been easy to avoid.
The author has a blog, "tailspintopics", which people are likely to enjoy very much if they liked this book.
Of the aircraft themselves, Thomason's account is uneven in level of detail. Maybe it is driven by what he found in his research, maybe simply by personal interest. The quality of the result is high, but it may not be what every reader expects. Thomason's bias seems towards failures -- The highly interesting (but not very positive) stories of the F7U Cutlass and F10F Jaguar are told in great detail,
The book is not flawless: Errors in the formatting of the text blemish the first chapters. They don't detract from the intelligibility of the text but make for uncomfortable reading, and would have been easy to avoid.
The author has a blog, "tailspintopics", which people are likely to enjoy very much if they liked this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review