Here you will find a global and unique coverage of the subject. This work will also help you fill out your knowledge and will be a very useful reference work. In addition to monographs of each aircraft type, whole families of aircraft are presented along with comparative studies, which set French aviation in the context of the period, thus giving an appreciation of its real value. The text has been illustrated with photographs and high quality color profiles.REVIEWS MMP has a deserved reputation for providing superbly researched and usable books that are a delight for both the enthusiast and modeler. This one has raised that bar another notch in terms of the sheer wealth of information that has been provided on what is to many, a pretty obscure, yet historically important subject. It is an absolute must have for any modeler and a book that gets my highest recommendation.Model Madness The lavishly illustrated, annotated account begins with sections recapping French naval aviation in 1939, technical programs, asset dispositions and losses...Photos, drawings and color profiles by the late, great Teodor Liviu Morosanu illustrate text... The stunning illustration of "Antares" in aluminum and anti-corrosion red with "livree d'esclave" Vichy red-and-yellow "slave stripes" nearly gave me whiplash...Roundly recommended.Cybermodeler

Thanks to this second volume, every single one of France's combat aircraft (fighters, bombers and recce aircraft) in the early years of W.W.II is now offered to the international audience, including the lesser known types. Each type is featured with an historical text, period photographs and color profiles.

KEYNOTE: * A study of all of the fighters, bombers, reconnaissance and observation aircraft utilised by the French Air Force between 1939 and 1942 In May 1940, contrary to preconceived ideas, France possessed many aircraft, balancing her fleet between outdated machines, which were thus quite vulnerable, and truly modern aircraft, which were nonetheless too weak in number and suffered from many defects that new models most often incur. Breffort and Jouineau have joined forces again to provide a newly expanded edition from two volumes of the Avions & Pilotes collection under the same title. This complete panorama of fighter aircraft of the period extends from the beginning of WWII to the dissolution of the Vichy Regime's aviation program. From Amiot to Potez, all the fighters, bombers, reconnaissance and observation aircraft utilized by the French Air Force between 1939 and 1942, whether they were produced in France or purchased abroad, are presented here in alphabetical order; an overview made complete with the presentation of the principle prototypes that were built, but never made it to the production line due to a variety of circumstances. illustrated throughout

The consolidated PBY Catalina was probably the most versatile and successful flying boat/amphibian ever built, serving not just with the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard during the Second World War, but also with the air forces of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the Danes, Free French and Norwegians as well as in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and elsewhere. With a remarkable lifting capacity and endurance, this long-range twin-engine aircraft could absorb a great deal of punishment and still return home after flights lasting an entire day and covering thousands of miles. It was employed as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, as a bomber and torpedo-bomber, as an anti-submarine weapon, as a mine layer, as a special operations machine and as a search-and-rescue craft by day and night. It ferried stores, mail and people - many of them sick and injured - across the world's oceans. In this book Andrew Hendrie tells the story of the "Flying Cats", of their achievements and exploits, of the heroism of many of the crews and the problems they had to endure.

In 1963, Eugen Sanger, became head of the Eurospace organization which promoted the 'AeroSpace Transporter'. In response to a Eurospace call, aircraft makers in France, Germany and UK designed recoverable, winged spacecraft. From 1964 to 1970 the French government led studies to evaluate the feasibility of the concept. Those studies, under the leadership of the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), coalesced into the Hermes spaceplane which was then adopted by the European Space Agency. In parallel, Germany and UK proposed fully recoverable designs while other countries, including Japan, India and Russia came to CNES to share ideas about spaceplane design. Unfortunately Hermes was never launched and by 1994 was abandoned after many alternative propositions were discussed. This book relates the story of these remarkable concepts, crossovers between aircraft and spacecraft beginning with the 'antipodal bomber' of 1944 and continuing to Aerospatiale STS-2000 project through the Transporteur Aero-Spatial, VERAS, AW Pyramid, Bumerang, Sanger II, HOTOL, Hermes, and Taranis. Non-European projects like Dyna-Soar, Hyperplane, HOPE, and MAKS are also be covered. It provides a fascinating and detailed account of these projects which, being half-way between aircraft and spacecraft, have hitherto often been therefore often neglected by aviation writers and historians.

On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF. Six weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged. Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really so inferior? Baughen examines the myths that surround the French defeat. He explains how at the end of the First World War, the French had possessed the most effective air force in the world, only for the lessons learned to be forgotten. Instead, air policy was guided by radical theories that predicted air power alone would decide future wars. Baughen traces some of the problems back to the very earliest days of French aviation. He describes the mistakes and bad luck that dogged the French efforts to modernise their air force in the twenties and thirties. He examines how decisions made just months before the German attack further weakened the air force. Yet defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made of the planes that were available, the result might have been different.

A fascinating account of a plane that served on both sides during World War 2 and in a variety of environments from Pearl Harbor to the deserts of North Africa to the barren forests of Karelia and the jungles of Burma. The Curtiss P-36 was considered a revolution in performance design in comparison to other US fighters. Yet by the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the P-40 was increasingly supplanting the P-36, which the US then exported to France under the guise of the Hawk 75. Flown by the French, captured by the Germans, sold to the Finns, transferred to India and Africa, and even incorporated into the RAF, the Hawk 75 saw service in every theatre of operations and in a variety of combat environments. This book depicts the interesting life of this plane, with colour artwork, photographs and first-hand accounts.

Stories of rare airplanes used by Allied and Axis nations during World War II, including plane specifications and photographs.

Analyzes each aircraft in detail, including development, prototype histories, design teams and aerodynamic problems that had to be overcome.