Flying Wings and Radical Things: Northrop's Secret Aerospace Projects & Concepts

A

AL

ACCESS: Confidential
Joined
3 November 2007
Messages
166
Reaction score
33
http://www.specialtypress.com/flying-wings-and-radical-things-limited-signed-edition.html
 
Oh, heck yes I'm buying this one. Just the bits he's had in his blog are fascinating.
 
Now I know why Tony's blog has been kinda mum IRT aircraft projects! He was probably saving all the goodies for this! :)
 
John K. "Jack" Northrop and the company he founded in 1939, Northrop Aircraft, Inc., will be forever linked with the giant futuristic Flying Wings of the 1940s. But those iconic designs were not the only ideas to spring from the mind of this pioneering visionary and the innovative engineers who followed him. Many piston-powered and turbojet concepts, both conventional and radical in shape and purpose, were proposed and developed over the company's proud fifty-five year history.This book unveils Northrop's once-secret radical designs, many for the first time, with never-before-published drawings, models, and photos of such novel concepts as a ship-based vertical take-off and landing fighter, a supersonic intercontinental cruise missile, a rocket-boosted jet spaceplane trainer, and a radical combination truck/aircraft/boat cargo vehicle. Much of this material has only recently been declassified. Here for the first time is the untold story of Northrop's rare, unique, and formerly super-secret aircraft and spacecraft of the future. Featuring stunning original factory artwork, technical drawings, and never-before-seen photographs, this book shows an amazing array of radical high-performance aircraft concepts from Jack Northrop and his team of brilliant and innovative engineers.

Pages: 276
Size: 10 X 10 (inches)
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: 70 color, 369 b/w
Publisher: Specialty Press
ISBN:
Product Code: SP229S
Click to expand...
 

Attachments

  • front_cover_image_3616.jpg
    front_cover_image_3616.jpg
    53 KB · Views: 948
Look inside on Google books :

books.google.fr

Flying Wings & Radical Things

John K. "Jack" Northrop and the company he founded in 1939, Northrop Aircraft, Inc., will be forever linked with the giant futuristic Flying Wings of the 1940s. But those iconic designs were not the only ideas to spring from the mind of this pioneering visionary and the innovative engineers who...
books.google.fr
 
This book is amazing. It truly sets a standard of everything a book on a specific manufacturer's projects should be!

Excellent narratives, comprehensive research, quality documents, and Craig Kodera's paintings are just unbelievable through and through.

An absolute must!
 
Tony Chong said:
I'm pleased to announce that my new book from Specialty Press, "Flying Wings & Radical Things: Northrop's Secret Aerospace Projects and Concepts 1939-1994," is now available from Amazon.
You can also get a limited edition signed copy, as long as it lasts, direct from Specialty Press. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Source: http://ghostmodeler.blogspot.com/2016/06/im-pleased-to-announce-that-my-new-book.html
 
Ordered it last week from Amazon but they say it's not in stock yet.
 
Hmmm was in stock yesterday when I placed my order, perhaps they'll update you on your order soon?
Really looking forward to getting my copy!
 
Just received my copy downunder. One word review: Wow!

Quick flick through shows new designs for mid prop 1940s strike fighters, more flying wings and new naval stealth from the 1990s. No rehash of old projects is this book. More gold from El Segundo.
 
Abraham Gubler said:
Just received my copy downunder. One word review: Wow!

Quick flick through shows new designs for mid prop 1940s strike fighters, more flying wings and new naval stealth from the 1990s. No rehash of old projects is this book. More gold from El Segundo.
Click to expand...

Great, great news! This means my copy should be on its way too...

Glad to hear that the rest of the book is just as good as the preview pages made available on Google Books, better even!
 
My copy is here. Book Depository told me it was shipping then the next minute cancelled my order because it's unavailable. Whatever, guys, lost my sale.

I decided to buy the (DRM protected) PDF version from Speciality Press website.

It is really SUPER. Lots of high quality Northrop colour artwork, and great research by Tony Chong, which benefits from his Northrop insider status. A landmark Projects book! If I'm being picky, the ebook PDF (77Mb) could have had higher resolution artwork (its only bandwidth, I'd like uncompressed and original resolution images :)) but it's a very minor quibble.
 
I ordered the physical book several weeks ago, yet received a delivery date no sooner than mid-July.
The fact that you've been told the book is "unavailable" doesn't sound too good.
If they ran out of stock or something, I need to get a refund before I order the PDF version.
 
Just got an update from the Big A (US) that my copy will ship between August 1 and September 8.
 
I received this book yesterday from Amazon and I can honestly say that it then absorbed the rest of my evening. The logical layout of project number order means that you can follow the designers thought processes through different versions of the same design or, as the author points out in his text, the same solution being applied across totally different projects.

This is highly recommended and a great addition to any library that has a focus on aircraft design, manufacturers or unbuilt projects.
 
Got mine too!

I'm very pleasantly surprised at the breadth and depth of the covered items. There's lots of stuff in this that I'd never heard of before! Nicely done all around!
 
PaulMM (Overscan) said:
My copy is here. Book Depository told me it was shipping then the next minute cancelled my order because it's unavailable. Whatever, guys, lost my sale.

I decided to buy the (DRM protected) PDF version from Speciality Press website.

It is really SUPER. Lots of high quality Northrop colour artwork, and great research by Tony Chong, which benefits from his Northrop insider status. A landmark Projects book! If I'm being picky, the ebook PDF (77Mb) could have had higher resolution artwork (its only bandwidth, I'd like uncompressed and original resolution images :)) but it's a very minor quibble.
Click to expand...

I completely agree about the artwork, but I understand that bigger images probably meant fewer projects in the book. I have one question as I found some basic errors in the book. Should I place them here for reference, or go over to Tony's blog to point them out for a future revision?

BTW, some of the designs I have been waiting for three views of for a long time were in this book. The number of designs/projects covered in this book are amazing. T%his is definitely one of my favorite "Secret Projects" books of all time.
 
Yes, proof-reading could have been better. Place the errors here if you like, we can collate and forward.
 
Here are some of the errors I noticed;

1) Pg. 203, the three view drawing is of a HATOL variant of their VATOL design. It looks like a RALS nozzle in the nose and you can see the downward vectored main outlets of the lift/cruise main engines.

2) Pg. 206, I think the bottom painting is a later variant of the N337, as it doesn't match the -200 drawing on the previous page, as it has a higher aspect ratio and a single seat cockpit. The text states that later variants of the N337 had a wing like LCS/N-336 and I think that's what the image shows.

3) The painting shown on page 227 appears to be a version of the P-1000. The inlets are different, everything else looks the same.

4) I don't know if this an error, but for the image on page 231 the caption states it could carry two asraams on twin wingtip rails. Is that true, or was the caption confused with the capabilities of the N-360?

I definitely need more drawings of the N-360, N-364 and P-800, just to name a few. ;)
 
Sundog said:
Here are some of the errors I noticed;

1) Pg. 203, the three view drawing is of a HATOL variant of their VATOL design. It looks like a RALS nozzle in the nose and you can see the downward vectored main outlets of the lift/cruise main engines.
Click to expand...

You are correct. N336 covered multiple HATOL and VATOL studies in various configurations.

Sundog said:
2) Pg. 206, I think the bottom painting is a later variant of the N337, as it doesn't match the -200 drawing on the previous page, as it has a higher aspect ratio and a single seat cockpit. The text states that later variants of the N337 had a wing like LCS/N-336 and I think that's what the image shows.
Click to expand...

Kind of. I think the painting shown is actually an earlier N333 design, I believe the N333-14, to ATS, predating N336. Tony Chong published a different N333 design in his book, N333-44, which is quite different, but the dorsal intake design was widely promoted as ATS in reports etc.

Sundog said:
3) The painting shown on page 227 appears to be a version of the P-1000. The inlets are different, everything else looks the same.
Click to expand...

The painting is identified as N-360 Baseline Advanced Fighter in the text, it is probably a version of the P-1000.

Sundog said:
4) I don't know if this an error, but for the image on page 231 the caption states it could carry two asraams on twin wingtip rails. Is that true, or was the caption confused with the capabilities of the N-360?
Click to expand...
Why wouldn't it be? The painting has wingtip AMRAAMs, but the twin launcher may have been an option.
 
Any way,

amazing and brilliant work,and we must congratulate the author about this great book,and
I have a suggesting to him,if he could access to Northrop/Grumman archive,he also can
make a book about Grumman too,but I think this new job will take a 400 page at least.
 
I also just noticed that the N364-1 on pg. 230 and in the painting on page 231 has two cannons. I guess they wanted to make sure it had one hell of a punch.
 
Maybe someone can assemble all of this into a single "Errata sheet" that those of us who own the book can print out?
 
Got mine yesterday. Awesome. I wish somebody would do something similar for McDonnell Douglas and Republic.
 
Just to add to what needs updating;

Pg. 228, there is an errant paragraph for the P700 in the section regarding the SSFTD.

The image I mentioned earlier, on page 206 with the dorsal inlet, according to posts on this site of the model of it, or one very similar to it, the stand is labeled N333-14.
 
Very interesting book. The name on the 1960 patent featured on p152 is particularly interesting to me - Rüdiger Kosin, Arado's wartime head of aerodynamics - who (I believe) joined Northrop in August 1955, having previously been working for the US Air Force at the Wright Air Development Center. Alongside Ludwig Bölkow, he'd been a member of the infamous committee who passed judgement on the Horten XVIII flying wing a decade and a half earlier...
 
PaulMM (Overscan) said:
Sundog said:
4) I don't know if this an error, but for the image on page 231 the caption states it could carry two asraams on twin wingtip rails. Is that true, or was the caption confused with the capabilities of the N-360?
Click to expand...
Why wouldn't it be? The painting has wingtip AMRAAMs, but the twin launcher may have been an option.
Click to expand...

I went back and re-read it. It's definitely text for the N-360 and not the N-364 as it describes the gun as being in the lower fuselage behind the cockpit. That's where it is located on the N-360. The N-364 has dual guns in the right wing root. Just saying in the interest of accuracy. I'm still enjoying the hell out of this book. :)
 
:) B)
Flying Wings and Radical Things Part 1
09.11.2016 Aerospace historian Tony Chong's presentation about Northrop's rare, unique and formerly secret aircraft projects and concepts. Presented at the Western Museum of Flight. Produced by Jarel & Betty Wheaton for Peninsula Seniors www.pvseniors.org
Click to expand...
Video:
View: https://youtu.be/cWOq0pdXxFU

Code: 
https://youtu.be/cWOq0pdXxFU

Part 2 will follow soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom