French Secret Projects 2: Bombers, Patrol and Assault Aircraft

JCC
I have been re-reading Volume 1 and especially the section on the Mirage III V vstol. I enjoyed the book very much as the drawings and photos were the mix and size I like and the text informative. I shall be ordering Vol 2 from Amatheft this week. Although not appropriate here I would like to see a volume in the same quality about the West German fighter projects from 1950 on.
 
"the West German fighter projects" : Tony Buttler has a book on European X-planes which tangents the subject isn't it ?

Thank you for the kind comments about Vol. 1

JCC
 
I've now received my copy.
Based on an extensive lead through my highest praise and recommendation for this wonderful book.
My thanks and regards to the author.
 
JCC
The prototypes that flew are well covered in various magazines but I was looking more for a wide range
of drawing board stuff that never made it. I think the
records exist in Munich and elsewhere but no German
author with the time and expertise.
 
Just received my author's copy and I am very happy with Crécy and the printer's work in producing it. Although it may look less "sexy" than the Fighter volume, I have the feeling it has more "scoops" than the first volume. And then between "Minerve" and the "Norapter" there are some really spectacular designs here !

JCC
 
JCC
My copy arrived today and I am delighted with it. The two volumes together are examples of how this sort of book should be produced. The drawings and photos are excellent and the subjects covered will ensure that I use both a great deal. So much material in a handy two volume set. Thank you .
 
I got it !

Well, to read, in English, to compare with the Cuny book and with my files, and to comment after that (it's going to take some time...). I think that there is a lot to discover in this book. Maybe more than in the first book.

At first glance, it seems that the Minerve chapter will be the most interesting for me.

And I think that we'll discuss about the Payen Pa.49A and B too ;)
 
It's time for me, I cant wait delivery day, First book is goldmine
Thanks JCC :)
 
Today is glory day, book are delivered and now is reading time
Book is goldmine
Thanks JCC
 
JC Carbonel said:
If you want ugly things look at the chapter fourteen with Gaston Chevrollier's flyiable ground-vehicles, the MS850 "flying jeep" and the Nord Norapter (the result of the un-natural mating of a Marmon-Herrington truck and a Hawker P1127 engine !
Click to expand...
Ouch!! That hurts just imagining it!
 
Hi folks,
my book arrived today. :)
Looking forward to read it during the upcoming weekend. B) It's anyway 'Schietwetter' outside. ;)
Many thanks for your work, Jean-Christophe! :D
A review will follow in the next few weeks.
 
I (slowly) started reading the three first chapters. It's very interesting.

I have been waiting for the first drawing of the page 54 (Four engines Mirage IV) for a very, very long time.
 
For some reason my order is hitting delay after delay. My previous delivery date was "by October 5" but it was not even shipped then. I have reordered and it is supposed to arrive at the end of the month! :mad:

All very frustrating since this is one of the books I have been looking forward to the most! :-\
 
My copy, ordered from Amazon-US arrived today. A truly fascinating read that I shall be devouring.

I will say the Nord Norapter looks as "unique" as the description above makes it sound.
 
Done !

Well, a good synthesis of a lot articles and books about the subjects. And a lot of news too !

My preference goes to the chapters three (the quest for the supersonic Bomber) and four (the Minerve programme). There is, in particular, a lot of unknown (at least for me) Dassault and other projects in these chapters.

I hope a French Secret Projects number three !
 
I just got my copy and it is another wonderful book in the series. The projects illustrated truly go from the sublime to the ridiculous!

And I like the fact that it includes helicopters and balloons.
 
Balloons ??? there are flying jeeps, boats, armored cars, infantrymen and whatever but no balloon in my book !!

JCC
 
My copy arrived today and it is in all ways a masterpiece of new information!
 
JC Carbonel said:
Balloons ??? there are flying jeeps, boats, armored cars, infantrymen and whatever but no balloon in my book !!

JCC
Click to expand...
Sorry about that, JC. I was looking at two books that arrived at about the same time and I got my signals crossed. No balloons, but a lot of other wild and crazy stuff, like flying cars, flying boats, even flying saucers! (The Germans obviously didn't have a monopoly on that sort of thinking.)
 
Was there very much information about the SO.71 and Nord 1800 bombers that didn't make it into the book? I'm very curious about them.
 
If I remember well for those two projects, I had not much more than the Cuny books to work from. And as they were basically pre-war subjects, I thought I would try to dig more stuff when (if) doing the French secret projects "1930-1940" book.

JCC
 
They were both developed for the 1944 B6/R6 specification and the Nord 1800 was probably one of the only French projects for a heavy jet bomber. As you say, there probably just wasn't much that survived about them.
 
Very great book dear JCC,

but one misprint,and in page 121,I want to know what is the right, SE 5103 or 5013 ?.
 
At last, I got this exciting book, especially Minerve project is amazing. :eek:
 
Dear JCC,

you forget some Projects in your book,I know most of them is without details or
sufficient Infos,such as Gerin V.15/48 (V.15 of 1948).
 

Attachments

  • 1.png
    1.png
    152.6 KB · Views: 564
Received my copy from Amazon… and it made me very disappointed. The text is fascinating but pictures printing quality is too poor to accept. All photos and drawings are printed at extremely low resolution – extremely fuzzy and pixelated. Crecy should recall all the faulty copies and destroy them.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_7445.JPG
    IMG_7445.JPG
    378.9 KB · Views: 475
  • IMG_7443.JPG
    IMG_7443.JPG
    1.4 MB · Views: 450
  • IMG_7444.JPG
    IMG_7444.JPG
    1.3 MB · Views: 428
The Fighters book had a number of poorly reproduced pictures, which was a bad point against it for me. In the old days, there were professional artists and typesetters who made sure the final book was as good as possible, even when some of the source material was bad (think photocopies etc). Its now much more on the author to supply the artwork in its final printed form - so printed reproduction can vary wildly in quality depending on the source image and the editing it received if any.

I know I spent a huge effort on tidying up scans and making them the right resolution, image format for my P.1121 book, and Chris does a lot for his books too.

For example, scans of 3 views or other line drawings must be supplied as 1 bit TIFF files, so they print out sharp as possible. Most printers can only print a dot or no dot - so to make shades of grey it uses a dither pattern of dots and spaces.

If you convert the picture to 1 bit (black and white) in software, you end up with a set of black dots directly corresponding to something which the printer can print at the highest resolution possible (say, 1200 or 2400 dots per inch).

If you print as a 8 bit grayscale image the printer had to use a dither pattern where sizable blocks of multiple dots and white space are used to represent each pixel in the image. This drastically reduces the apparent resolution of the 3 view when printed to something more like 150 or 300 dots per inch.

Combine this with a low resolution original, and the results can be quite unpleasing to the eye, though with increasing printer resolution it gets less noticable.

Having said that, I have no idea what the cause is with the specific drawings in this book, it could be a problem at various stages including the printer. What I said is to illustrate the complexity of getting drawings printed on paper in high quality. As an author, its disappointing when there are mistakes in the final product - there are a few in my book... despite my best efforts.

I found Jared Zichek's book Secret Aerospace Projects of the U. S. Navy: The Incredible Attack Aircraft of the USS United States 1948-1949 was let down by the reproduction of the drawings - the lines were too thin and light to see properly.
 
PaulMM (Overscan) said:
Having said that, I have no idea what the cause is with the specific drawings in this book, it could be a problem at various stages including the printer. What I said is to illustrate the complexity of getting drawings printed on paper in high quality. As an author, its disappointing when there are mistakes in the final product - there are a few in my book... despite my best efforts.
Click to expand...

In French Secret Projects 2， all the photos, drawings and diagrams being printed at extremely low resolution without exception. In my opinion，it was a product quality accident.
 
for print quality, you have to ensure that the print resolution would be coherent with the print process.
If you send some images, make sure they reach a resolution of 300dpi. Something that looks good on Word could ended-up being of a poor quality once printed.

Also, once you are satisfied with your image quality, make sure that you send vector files like EPS to your editor. Once resized to fit in the publication, those would keep a pertaining resolution (300dpi if you saved them that way).

my 2 cents
 
As ov-101 says, all the images in the book are affected, even the Crecy adverts at the back of the book.
 
Thanks a lot ov-101, I'm about to receive my copy and I'll be ready to reject it
 
Hood said:
As ov-101 says, all the images in the book are affected, even the Crecy adverts at the back of the book.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a major issue in printing that should have been caught, like accidentally using a low res PDF to print from.
 
In the immortal word of King Ubu: MERDRE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubu_Roi

C'est bien embêtant tout ça...
 
Amazon reviews about French Secret Projects 2 mention the same problem

Seems they had Low resolution File as master for print, but why to hell has no one notice that and intervene ?
and worst how many of these version were printed ?!
 
Crécy have corrected the problem. They sent me a copy of the new printing earlier this month which is quite improved.
As much as possible of the drawings (that is : those I scanned myself) were delivered in .tiff on an usb key to avoid the hassle of sending huge files on the Net (and don't tell me about "sharing" system where your "share" your work with all the planet before your legitimate partner-s)

JCC
 
My copy has the same low-res pics. I wonder if Crecy gonna replace defective copies...
 
Wrote to Crecy through a contact form at their site explaining a problem. Day two, no reply.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom