The Thunder Factory

Out of the 'Thunder Factory' came some of the most adventurous and successful warplane designs in the history of flight. From the outstanding P-47 Thunderbolt of World War Two, through the Thunderjet and Thunderceptor to the F-105 Thunderchief which saw vigorous action in Vietnam and today's A-10 Thunderbolt, the 'titanium tankbuster', the Republic Aviation Corporation, in its various guises, has been at the forefront of technological advance. To study its output is to track the history of military flying itself.


• 1931: Russian air ace and emigre, Alexander de Seversky, forms his aircraft company.
• 1933: The first aircraft – the SEV-3 Amphibian – establishes the world speed record.
• 1940: The famous P-47 is created and over 15,000 are built.
• 1945: The doomed XF-12 Rainbow, still the fastest multi-engine propdriven aircraft.
• 1945: The F-84 Thunderjet, America's first 600mph fighter and the first equipped for air-to-air refuelling.
• 1953: The F-105, record-breaking, missile-destroying 'hero' of the Vietnam air war. 1955: The all-titanium XF-103 project. Never built, but unique and technically brilliant.
• 1965: In the midst of another setback, the company is rescued by the Fairchild Corporation.
• 1972: The A-10 'tankbuster' – still widely deployed in Europe.
• 1973: Into space with a component role in building the Space Shuttle.
1985: The T-46 debacle. The 'completed' prototype with 1,200 components missing!
This history of peaks and troughs, triumphs and disasters, achievements and setbacks –but, above all, a story of life at the 'sharp end' of aviation design and manufacture is told here with the help of many unpublished photographs from the company's own archives.


by Joshua Stoff
Publiahed by Arms and Armour Press 1990 1st edition. 192pp profusely illustrated, index, bibliography. 19x25 near mint, including d/j.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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