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U. S. Commercial Aircraft

U. S. Commercial Aircraft

Ref: 4420

In stock

Price: £10.00

sadly, flyingbooks is now closed.

{detailed description}Apart from a brief pre-First World War excursion across Tampa Bay, Florida, commercial air transport in the USA owes its origins to the airmail contracts awarded in the 1920s by the US Post Office. Over the ensuing sixty years many hundreds of designs have received an approved type certificate, the document which clears American aircraft for commercial service. It would be impossible to deal with them all in a book of this size, but elimination of most of the "one-offs" and aircraft carrying fewer than four passengers has left a selection of nearly two hundred types.
Among them are the slow but reliable Fords and Fokkers of the 1920s and early 1930s, as well as such fast, innovative designs as the Monomail; names like Air Pullman and China Clipper, evoking the sense of excitement and the travelling standards of their time, and aircraft with unimaginative model numbers evoking no such thing but selling in their thousands nevertheless; little winners like Beechcraft's Bonanza and the Ryan Brougham, sister ship of Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis. Each has its place in the scheme of things, from such obscure oddities as the Barnhart Wampus Kat to Burnelli's lifting fuselages, from specialised juggernauts like the bizarre Guppies to the now commonplace giantism of the j umbo jet. They share the stage with the familiar Convairs, Boeings, Lockheeds and, inevitably, the ubiquitous, indestructible, irreplaceable DC-3.
As their stories are told there also unfolds that of the airline industry they were built to serve: from the pioneering New York-Rio-Buenos Aires operation to such present-day giants as Pan Am, TWA, Delta and United. At the other end of the scale, the commuter, corporate and larger private aircraft also take their place in the fly-past.
A superb selection of contemporary photographs is balanced by a concise description of each type's origins, development and operational career, and a valuable tabulation of basic technical data
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Kenneth Munson
Published by Janes 1982 1st edition. 223pp profusely illustrated, index. 22x27
{condition}very good, d/j good, slightly yellowed.

{delivery info}
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U.K.tracked
first class (1-2 days)£4.75
second class (2-3 days)£4.25


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