The first paragraph in the manuscript is:
But for a series of problems and unfortunate events, it is conceivable that the iconic U.S. Air Force F-86 Sabre would have had to share the glory of its kill-ratio supremacy over the Russian MiG-15 in the skies above Korea with another swept-wing jet fighter named after a bladed weapon, the Chance Vought F7U Cutlass. Instead, the Navy’s straight–wing jet fighters were relegated to a supporting role in the Korean War. Like the Air Force’s straight-wing F-80s and F-84s, the Navy’s jets were used primarily for bombing and close-air support missions, augmenting the propeller-driven fighters that they had replaced.
That picture is bogus, of course, but thanks to the efforts of people like Bill Spidle—who has been separating the wheat from the chaff at the Vought archives—there are a few that have not been previously published and lots of new information. For example, here is a draft illustration of a Vought design study that predates the proposal to the Navy.
At the moment, I'm still missing pictures of Bureau Numbers 124416 and 124424 but unless someone has them and sends them to me, I will have to publish without.
More later...
5 comments:
Last monograph? Last book? say it ain't so....Hopefully you mean a printed book or monograph made of dead trees...the digital world of e-books awaits. Zap you with PayPal and you electronically send me a E-book/E-monograph. There is too much USN aviation history that we are still ignorant about.
Pat Donahue
..I agree all we need is a pdf file. Why give your material to a publisher anyway?..cut out the middle man, deal with your readers directly ...keep all the monies...
best of luck...
http://falkeeins.blogspot.com
Thanks very much for the suggestions. I've given electronic publishing some thought. However, working with a publisher has notable benefits, particularly when they are Steve Ginter, Specialty Press, or Crecy. They do the layouts, provide grammatical and technical review, get the books/monographs printed, and most importantly, distribute them: making them readily available to a far larger audience than my blogs enjoy. My guess is that I might make a little more on each book if I went electronic, but I'd sell a lot fewer. Not to mention spending a lot of time on the layout thing, which I don't know much about and am not interested in learning, much less doing.
However, I'm not done chronicling yet. At the moment, once I get this F7U-1 monograph done, I plan to write a few more articles like the ones recently published in La Fana on the F7U and the XFL-1. I've also provided the material for a couple of CDs, one on the AJ Savage for the Anigrand kit and one on the F-111B for the Pete's Hangar conversion. Doing some more of those is a possibility.
And, of course, I'll keep adding to my blogs as stuff of interest, at least to me, comes up...
Very fine book.
Only critique would be lack of full spec's sheet (common to Ginter books) for the F7U-1 aircraft.
Presume that will follow in a Vol 2 on the -3 models.
Thanks for the compliment. If the specs you're referring to is the F7U-1 Standard Aircraft Characteristics Chart, I left it out because some of the performance numbers are bogus even in the last version, you can find the one dated 1 June 1949 for free on the interweb (Google F7U-1 SAC or email me*), the basic information is included in the monograph, and there were actually two or three different SACs and we were already having to leave stuff out.
*tommy thomason (all one word) (at sign) sbcglobal (period) net
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