American Combat Planes of the 20th Century

Since I am not the most skilled modeler, I at least try to be a knowledgeable and accurate modeler.  That means research.  For me, this usually means for every project I try to cobble together a lot of separate resources -- a magazine article here, a Squadron "In Action" booklet there, and a couple of internet web sites.  If it is an airplane project -- and I am really lucky -- sometimes I can find my subject in the classic set of Aircraft in Profile books that I inherited from my father.  I then seldom have to look much further.  If I am unlucky, I can rely on a general encyclopedic resource like "Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation" or Rand McNally’s “World Aircraft” for at least the most skeletal information.  However, no matter how good my resource, it usually is something I pull off the shelf only when I need help on a particular subject and find that its highest and best use is when it is sitting open at a particularly helpful page and propped up on my modeling space for quick reference while building or painting a kit -- few have ever been real "page turners" that someone would want to bring to bed to read at night cover to cover.  No matter how hard I might try to be a true nerd, I simply cannot get myself to enjoy curling up with a good aircraft encyclopedia or web site.  Even an Aircraft in Profile article is a "good read" only when I'm working on the particular subject being profiled, and regardless of one's enthusiasm for a particular airplane, I question how often most modelers have read every word of an "In Action" booklet.

This brings me to Ray Wagner -- archivist for a major metropolitan aerospace museum (San Diego's) and for over fifty years the author of various "Aircraft in Profile" articles, "In Action" booklets, and full length books on the history of aircraft, aircraft designers and air forces -- and his seminal work "American Combat Planes of the 20th Century."  Though unfortunately not containing the full color drawings of aircraft color schemes as do his Aircraft in Profile articles and "In Action" booklets that are the first thing I turn to and still make my modeling heart quicken, "American Combat Planes" is the rarest of resources -- a truly good read even apart from a modeling project.  Unlike encyclopedic resources that mind numbingly describe "famous planes" one after another, or alphabetize an endless number of aircraft descriptions by manufacturer --and out of all historical context -- Wagner's book is organized both to be a comprehensive reference AND to tell a story. 

As a reference book, its publishers take justifiable pride in the boast that Wagner's work includes every (not just every "famous" or "important") aircraft (and their variants) that America made or used that was "designed to attack an enemy with guns, bombs or rockets."  Hence, though it discusses Grumman's XF5F "Skyrocket" that was never picked up by the Navy, it also informed me about an equally unproduced version of the same aircraft built for the Army as the XP-50.  The book also provides the most recent scholarship concerning each American warplane.  Apparently, and not surprisingly on thinking about it, a combat aircraft's actual characteristics or numbers produced were often misstated during war time or the procurement process and such false "data" took on a life of its own and continued to be cited in subsequent references on the subject.  For example, the Bell Airacuda had a top speed that was over 45 mph less and a service ceiling almost 5,000 feet lower than was advertised.  Finally, all this information is provided in a beautiful book filled with approximately 1700 photographs and the occasional illustration and table.  My one nitpick on the photos is that though data on the characteristics of the plane represented are given in the caption, nothing is said about where and when the photo was taken and several of the photos simply cry out for such an explanation of the circumstances involved (e.g. why does the 1930’s Keystone B-4A bomber depicted in a beautiful page-width in flight photo have the “gunner” operating a movie camera instead of a defensive weapon?  Was the photo taken while filming a air war movie?  There certainly is a story there somewhere!)

As an actual readable book, “American Combat Planes” also tells a story about the evolution of familiar and unfamiliar American combat planes and plane types – including those that became developmental dead ends (for example, again, the intended use of the Airacuda to attack unescorted enemy bombers far from American shores).  It does so by first dividing up the epic of 20th Century American combat aircraft into four parts: "The Biplane Period" (1917-1932), "Monoplanes for World War II" (1931-1945), "Air Weapon for the Cold War" (1946-1962), and "An Awesome Generation since 1963" (1963-2001).  Each part is introduced by a chapter giving a historical overview of the needs or threats, real or perceived, that led to the particular development of the aircraft types of that specific era and concluded by a chapter or two on a special developmental trend of interest.  In between, each era is broken down into sections correlating to various combat types.  For example, the chapters in Part I are entitled: "Close Support for the Army" (1917-1923), "The First Fighters" (1915-1923), "Multi-engine Bombers" (1917-1932), "Army Pursuits" ((1920-1932), "Army Observation and Attack" (1922-1933), "Flying Boats for Navy Patrols" (1917-1934), "New Weapons for the Navy" (1918-1933); "Navy Observation Aircraft" (1917-1932), and "Adapting Fighters to Flight Decks."  Within each of these sections the reader can view and read how each plane of that particular type evolved over time, what it replaced, and what it ultimately was replaced by -- allowing the reader to see how aircraft developed and learn about the reasons why.  Along the way are wonderful tidbits of new information, at least for me (e.g. the first American pilot killed in a dogfight with the Japanese over China, and also the Japanese Navy’s first aerial victory, was Robert Short in 1932 -- almost a decade before the attack on Pearl Harbor – when he was “demonstrating” a Boeing P-12 variant for the U.S. Army by defending Soochow against Japanese bombers from the carrier Kaga and was shot down by Type 3 fighter escorts).  Also scattered throughout are interesting topics that I, at least, have never come across before -- such as the evolution of defensive weaponry for bombers and the development of the "attack" aircraft type as distinguished from the "fighter" and "bomber" types.

As an obsessive modeler, I love to research the heck out of my projects.  Ray Wagner's "American Combat Planes of the 20th Century" gives me not only a new starting place for any American combat plane project, but an understanding of its importance in the larger scheme of history -- and a book to curl up with.

Highly recommended.

My thanks to the Author’s son Roger Wagner for providing an example for this review.

To examine exemplar sections from the book, visit http://www.americancombatplanes.com/home.html.  

Dan Hamilton

January 2009