Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich

[newsdeskdan]

Yep, have access now.

Phew! Glad to hear it's working, thanks.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Yes, fortunately it is working now.
I sent an email to enquiries and, after changing the link, I could download and read the book, that I have liked.
It is a cleverly organized collection on the 'Luft 46' universe. I recommend its reading.

 

[Flyaway]

I believe it was mentioned up thread this would be stocked in WH Smiths. I've had a look in a few branches but have yet to spot a copy?

 

[Wurger]

Just got an answer (finally) from the publisher(I ordered in August 9th). My order will arrive in 7-10 (long) days.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

We'll be standing by, Stateside. I definitely will! Can't wait!

 

[CJGibson]

Found it in Aberdeen railway station WH Smiths.

Very nice indeed. Lots of new material, new to me at least. I have never seen drawings of the coal grate of the P.13b before. Very nice indeed. Well done.

All for seven quid. Bargain.

Chris

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Found it in Aberdeen railway station WH Smiths.

Very nice indeed. Lots of new material, new to me at least. I have never seen drawings of the coal grate of the P.13b before. Very nice indeed. Well done.

All for seven quid. Bargain.

Chris

Agreed - its a nice pricepoint and unlike some of the other "bookazines" I've seen has serious research time behind it.

 

[Richard N]

I am in Texas, USA and got ”Luftwaffe Secret Jets” digital for $4.99 USD from the Pocketmags.com site here: https://pocketmags.com/viewmagazine.aspx?catid=1030&category=Aviation+%26+Transport&subcatid=188&subcategory=Aviation&title=Aviation+Classics&titleid=913&issueid=104259
Classic Magazines wants over $6 for the same item and their prices are in pounds so you may also get hit with a foreign currency charge on your credit card. Pocketmags has a much larger selection along with better prices.


If you are in the USA and use the link the Pocketmags site gives you to get the Pocketmags reader app, it takes you to the amazon.co.uk site and you will get a message that you cannot get the app because you are not in the UK. What you are left to figure out for yourself is that you have to go the Amazon site for your country, which in my case is amazon.com. I was then able to get the Pocketmags app from amazon.com. For my PC, I had to take the “Cloud” option. On my Kindle Fire, I took the “Kindle” option.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Waiting on the print copy in west TX.

 

[Flyaway]

Finally got hold of a copy in a branch of WH Smiths.

 

[Jemiba]

Have just finished "The Hated Volksjäger" now and apart from its relevance for the He 162
itself, to my opinion it gives a very good insight into the kind of source, that Dan has bundled
there : Interrogation reports and comments by contemporary witnesses. Those sources are often
stated as evidence in many publications, not taking into account, that they may be influenced by
justifications, accusations or simply by bad memory.
So, interesting read about the Volksjäger and an important read for all, who are dealing with
such documents from time to time, especially with regard to the former German Airforce.
The different statements by the participants in the He 162 development and additionally the mentioned
spreading of construction documents and drawings shows, why research in the field of late WW II
German designs may be more difficult, than for other countries.
Many thanks for this effort, Dan !

P.S.: I have no Kindle, but it can be read on the computer, too, using an app.

 

[gatoraptor]

Have just finished "The Hated Volksjäger" now and apart from its relevance for the He 162
itself, to my opinion it gives a very good insight into the kind of source, that Dan has bundled
there : Interrogation reports and comments by contemporary witnesses. Those sources are often
stated as evidence in many publications, not taking into account, that they may be influenced by
justifications, accusations or simply by bad memory.
So, interesting read about the Volksjäger and an important read for all, who are dealing with
such documents from time to time, especially with regard to the former German Airforce.
The different statements by the participants in the He 162 development and additionally the mentioned
spreading of construction documents and drawings shows, why research in the field of late WW II
German designs may be more difficult, than for other countries.
Many thanks for this effort, Dan !

P.S.: I have no Kindle, but it can be read on the computer, too, using an app.

Thanks Jemiba. As you say, the testimony of Ernst Heinkel and his deputy Karl Frydag is particularly interesting with regard to where the company's drawings ended up. It seems to me that Heinkel and Frydag were providing written answers to questions probably put to them verbally time and again: "Where are the drawings?" The truth is, in spite of what Heinkel says, most of the drawings seem to have disappeared without trace. Had they been handed to Bingham and Lee, as he suggests, why were none of them included in German Aircraft: New and Projected Types?
Its rather like the Junkers project drawings. Definitely captured by the Americans then... gone.
Judging by other documents I've seen, it's possible that the Heinkel and Junkers drawings were whisked away and filed... somewhere apart from those of Arado, Blohm & Voss, Messerschmitt, Focke-Wulf etc. The reason being that the Russians had captured a lot of Heinkel material in Vienna and most of Junkers' design personnel from Dessau too (having been handed it by the Americans but only after all the documents had been removed). Examining those two companies' drawings might have given an insight into what sort of jet aircraft the Russians were likely to build next. Maybe.
It'd be useful if someone could assess the PB archive at the Library of Congress. Sadly I'm too far away from it.

Considering how many early Soviet prototypes were clearly developed from Junkers designs - the I-270 (which evolved from both Junkers & Messerschmitt) and the EF-140, to name just two - I'd guess that most of the Junkers drawings wound up in Soviet hands.

 

[gatoraptor]

Last night, I found "Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich" at a Barnes & Noble store in Huntsville, AL (one-time home of some well-known German rocket scientists). Unfortunately, all four copies were damaged, with broken bindings, so I passed on them, expecting to find the publication at another B&N store.


So far, no luck. Neither the other Huntsville store nor the Kennesaw, GA store had apparently received any copies. The customer service fellow in Kennesaw looked it up and found that B&N's "on sale" date was 9/22, so the copies should have arrived in this week's shipment. (Two other British "bookazines" did: one on modern U.S. Navy & Marine Corps aviation, and the other, an "Aeroplane Archives" issue on Battle of Britain aircraft.) Unfortunately, while B&N people can locate copies of books in other nearby stores, they cannot for magazines, so I'll just have to keep checking other area stores myself.


The publication is rather thick for a "bookazine" and is perfect-bound. Flipping through the damaged copy revealed it to be a quality piece of work, worth looking for. But if I'm going to pay nearly $20, it had better be in pristine condition!

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Dan, you outdid yourself, man.

Just picked up my copy here in sunny El Paso and well worth the $21.64 I paid for it. I'm very pleased! Excellent work! B) ;D

That said, I guess I'm done blowing up this thread for updates!

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Yeah, probably like import taxes, state sales taxes, and all that good stuff!

But it was well worth it.

 

[gatoraptor]

No joy here in Atlanta, yet. I've tried 5 different Barnes & Noble stores in this area, and none of them received any copies. I don't think I want to mail-order one, since my luck with mailed soft-cover publications has not been good. If anyone in the southeast U.S. finds copies for sale in a store in pristine condition, please let me know.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Well I hope you do find it, man. It's well worth it, once you do.

I'm not even bothered by what I paid for it. I was just happy to finally see it arrive out here. And my neighborhood Barnes & Noble is probably relieved I won't call to bug them anymore.

 

[Wurger]

Finally got it!!! Well done, Dan, it`s well worth the price. Can you please tell what project are depicted in the preface page? I can see a "tail dragger" twin engined aircraft

The pics relating to the Hütter Hu 211 are also spectacular. Can you please show them to us?

 

[Orionblamblam]

I picked up a copy today at a Barnes & Noble. Well worth the $19.99 (plus tax) price tag. Although... a lot of the diagrams for the Lippish section come from the same guy, according to the caption credits. Are you sure he's trustworthy? I've heard some things...

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

That guy's a clearinghouse for lost aerospace history.

 

[elmayerle]

To the best of my knowledge (had a major operation on 9/25 and am still in recovery at home), it has not yet reached the DFW area, but I will keep an eye out. I definitely want this item.

 

[elmayerle]

{Add expletives to season to taste} The one B&N in the DFW area that got it only received a few copies and those were sold before I was up and around and able to get there. Well, guess I'll need to order a paper copy from the publisher.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Might be cheaper to order from a forum member in the States who finds some at their local book store. Postage would certainly be cheaper than from the UK.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

You can buy the ebook version very cheaply from anywhere.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You can buy the ebook version very cheaply from anywhere.

As a producer of aerospace history stuff... ebooks are great.

As a reader of aerospace history stuff... gimme something I can put on my shelf.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

You can buy the ebook version very cheaply from anywhere.

As a producer of aerospace history stuff... ebooks are great.

As a reader of aerospace history stuff... gimme something I can put on my shelf.

Sure, I just meant in last resort

 

[ov-101]

You can buy the ebook version very cheaply from anywhere.

As a producer of aerospace history stuff... ebooks are great.

As a reader of aerospace history stuff... gimme something I can put on my shelf.

In addition to eBooks I hope you can use POD to print your boos.

 

[gatoraptor]

Might be cheaper to order from a forum member in the States who finds some at their local book store. Postage would certainly be cheaper than from the UK.

Not so! I wound up ordering a copy from the publisher's store page (http://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/product/5475/luftwaffe-secret-jets-of-the-third-reich-bookazine-by-dan-sharp) and the price, including shipping, was less than I would have paid at B&N, even with their 10% members discount! I just hope that they pack it well for its transatlantic journey.

 

[elmayerle]

Might be cheaper to order from a forum member in the States who finds some at their local book store. Postage would certainly be cheaper than from the UK.

Not so! I wound up ordering a copy from the publisher's store page (http://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/product/5475/luftwaffe-secret-jets-of-the-third-reich-bookazine-by-dan-sharp) and the price, including shipping, was less than I would have paid at B&N, even with their 10% members discount! I just hope that they pack it well for its transatlantic journey.

Yeah, I noticed that, too. And I have the same hope. Based on the shipment of other purchases from parties in the UK, I'm feeling reasonably confident.

 

[Firebee]

I received my copy from the publisher a few weeks ago, (I'm in California). It was in pretty good shape, other than some minor spine flex and slight corner bumping. Great work on the bookazine/mook in any case.

 

[gatoraptor]

I received my copy from the publisher a few weeks ago, (I'm in California). It was in pretty good shape, other than some minor spine flex and slight corner bumping. Great work on the bookazine/mook in any case.

It's the "spine flex" that worries me, as it's a "perfect-bound" publication. The 4 copies I saw in the Huntsville store all had broken spines.

 

[gatoraptor]

Hurrah! Success at last. On a trip to Pennsylvania to attend a wedding, I visited three more Barnes & Noble stores. The stores in Lancaster and Exton had no copies, but the one in Valley Forge had one copy left that, while not pristine, was in surprisingly good shape, with a straight binding and no creases. Even though I have a copy on order from the U.K., I snapped it up anyway.

I had a chance to peruse it while waiting for my flight at PHL. It impressed me as a much more scholarly work than most of the "Luftwaffe '46" books in my collection, telling the full story of the German jet and rocket aircraft programs, right from the start of engine experimentation, with a remarkably complete timeline. I was impressed with the number of illustrations taken from original German proposals and manuals, along with the modern color artworks. This is definitely one of the very best mooks/magbooks/bookazines that I've ever seen.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Imagine if we had something like that for US or British projects.

 

[gatoraptor]

And heeeeeres the sequel!

http://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/product/5507/bookazine-luftwaffe-secret-bombers-of-the-third-reich-book

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

My imaginary tail is wagging right now! :-D

 

[athpilot]

Hello Mr. Sharp. Today I finished reading this bookazine. Great stuff! It ist worth every Cent. Some informations were new to me, e.g. the Kutonase of the Lippisch P13 and that it was a didicated ramming aircraft (Rammjäger).
So it seems to me that if a researcher want to have good and new findings the german archives are no longer useful. We (this means the german and european historians) have to look at american, british or russian archives. Several years ago I visited the federal archives in Moscow; oh it was terrible, they were laying bricks...
I have a question. I saw the attached picture of a P13 often. Where was it published first? Was it a wartime drawing? I´am asking because I´m interested in the helmet the pilot wears. Did the german Luftwaffe really intended to use "jet-helmets"?

 

[newsdeskdan]

Hello Mr. Sharp. Today I finished reading this bookazine. Great stuff! It ist worth every Cent. Some informations were new to me, e.g. the Kutonase of the Lippisch P13 and that it was a didicated ramming aircraft (Rammjäger).
So it seems to me that if a researcher want to have good and new findings the german archives are no longer useful. We (this means the german and european historians) have to look at american, british or russian archives. Several years ago I visited the federal archives in Moscow; oh it was terrible, they were laying bricks...
I have a question. I saw the attached picture of a P13 often. Where was it published first? Was it a wartime drawing? I´am asking because I´m interested in the helmet the pilot wears. Did the german Luftwaffe really intended to use "jet-helmets"?

You're right, that drawing does appear in Hans-Peter Dabrowski's P13a book(let) and a few other places. I couldn't say for certain that it's not a genuine WW2 drawing - there is contemporary artwork in a similar style - but it was not part of the original brochure, whereas most of the other familiar designs, such as the cockpit interior drawing, were. Also, the brochure refers throughout to the LFW and the P13, not the 'LP 13A'. Given this inaccurate designation and the anachronistic 'jet helmet', my guess would be that the drawing you are interested in was produced postwar.
Regarding the German archives, I believe you're selling them short. Have you read Michael Fröhlich's Panzerkampfwagen Maus: Der überschwere Panzer Porsche Typ 205? It has lots of original previously unseen (I think) wartime drawings... from the Porsche archives.
As you probably know, circa about 1960, the US returned all the hard copy captured German documents it had to Germany (possibly with the exception of the Junkers archive). These seem to have been handed back to the individual companies that produced them in the first place where possible - presumably why Porsche still has those drawings. It seems likely that Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf got some of theirs back (perhaps now held by Airbus). Probably BMW and Daimler-Benz too. Heinkel's design drawings etc. seem to have been destroyed either shortly before or shortly after(!) being captured so couldn't be returned. Blohm & Voss's material was all returned, only to be destroyed at the company's premises in the great Hamburg flood of 1962 (Richard Vogt had some, but that was apparently destroyed in a fire at his home in the US). No idea what happened to the Arado and Gotha material. Siebel and Henschel went to the Soviets. Dornier was taken by the French, who don't appear to have shared the material they took in the same way that the British and Americans shared everything. So I don't think anything went back to Dornier, although I could be wrong.
I'm not sure, therefore, that German and other European sources are exhausted. Am I wrong?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Source

 

[Justo Miranda]

LKp N101 Netzkopfhaube-Lightweight Netting Helmet with Fighter Mask Model 10-69

 

[newsdeskdan]

Source

Interesting binding! Well, that takes us back to 1976. You might argue that, since the drawing appears in Lippisch's own book (albeit published after his death), it is bound to be period authentic. Unfortunately I have to tell you that many of the drawings in Ein Dreieck Fliegt are heavily doctored. Some of them are even of dubious provenance. I've attached the entire contents of the original, captured, P13 report (the grey 'pages' are actually photographs glued to a light card backing). The text pages are numbered, the images are not, but this is the order in which the images were scattered through the text pages. Which P13 image is noticeable by its absence?
While you're looking at Ein Dreieck Fliegt, have a look at the 3-view of the P 13 b at the top of p103 (p90 in the English version 'The Delta Wing - History and Development'). You'll notice that the cockpit is blacked out in all three views. Now why do you suppose that is?