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Diamond jubilee of powered flight: the evolutiion of aircraft design
Bibliographic
of an index here, or that of an intuitively clear organization. Chapter 2 is entitled “Problems of Location”: it ineludes a section on the design of the household survey. Reading Chapter 3 is like walking through an unkempt maze littered with confusing and repetitive section headings of different orders. Chapter 4 goes by the name of “An Assessment of Travel Priorities and Attitudes” and has section headings relating only to priorities. And so on. Difficulties of presentation carry through to the coneluding sections of the book where the reader will search in vain for some overall summary finding. Instead the statements are piecemeal and detailed. One memorable conelusion is that the difference in the trip making pattern of the carless and the noncarless is not so much in the total
Section
439
number of trips made as in the activities for which trips are made and the places to which they are made. This discovery undermines the traditional definition of carlessness and has an interesting implication for transport policy. Since it is the more far flung and lower priority activities which the carless are kept from enjoying, their opportunities will not be expanded by the introduction of conventional mass transit focussed on serving commuter trips. It is regrettable to report having closed a book dissatisfied. As ever, there is at least one redeeming feature of a bad book though: in the course of wrestling with it the reader is prompted to think hard about other ways of completing a similar exercise. In this case one is stirred to contemplate afresh the measurement, extent and significance of the phenomenon of carlessness.
BRIEF NOTICES World Civil Aircraft Since 1945, Michael Hardy, Scrib-
ner, Shipping and Service Center, Vreeland Avenue, Totowa, NJ 07512, U.S.A., 1979, pp. 128, $10.45. Mail-order customers beware: this is another of those books with a misleading title. In this case the author decided to exclude aircraft introduced after l%9. This droll decision means that the reader will not encounter any information about the Airbus, the Lockheed 1011 Tristar, the DC IO or about smaller aircraft such as Learjets or Cessna Citations. In short, this supposed compendium has nothing on the majority of aircraft one is likely to see. Readers wanting full details on modern aircraft should consider ordering Civil Aircraft of the World, 1978, the companion volume. The book describes the origins, history, development and commercial use of II7 different types of aircraft in use between 1945 and l%9, including old-timers such as the Douglas DC 3, the Ford Tri-Motors and the Junkers JU 52. In this historical sense it is ,an excellent compilation, worthy of a place in every transportation and aviation library. Copious illustrations and concise technical descriptions accompany the text. The otherwise excellent presentation is marred however by the publishers extremely small type-far smaller than what is now before you.
The Airport-From
The strength and main interest of the work lies in its photographs; about half of these date from before 1940.I had never seen such a collection before. Readers should be aware however, that the illustrations are predominantly from the United States. It must be stressed that this text is indeed a “celebration”. It is neither comprehensive, critical nor accurate. Airport planners may appreciate it, as I do, as an amusing view of our efforts, which may help us keep from being too serious about our work.
Diamond Jubilee of Powered Flight: the Evolution of Aircraft Design, Jay D. Pinson (ed.), American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A., 1978, pp. 152, $20.00. A collection of sixteen papers being the proceedings of a conference to mark 75 years of powered flight. The presentation is divided into 25-year segments which highlight the advances in design of the more than 10,000 different concepts of aircraft built and flown since 1903. Contributors review, among others, the contributions of the Wright brothers, progress during World War I, aircraft company designs, the story of the business jet and the space shuttle.
Landing Field to Modern Terminal,
Martin Greif, Mayflower Books, 575 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022, U.S.A., 1979, pp. 192, $12.95. This book describes itself as “the first to celebrate in text and pictures the history of that place of endless fascination-the airport”. Exactly so. We have here an enthusiastic, highly personal account of airfields and terminals since the beginning, featuring close on 200 illustrations. It is rather like the picture album of a proud parent.
From the Captain to the Colonel: an Informal History of Eastern Airlines, Robert J. Sterling, Dial Press, I Dag
Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, U.S.A., 1980, pp. 535, $12.95. This is most readable and entertaining case-study of airline operation and management told by an aviation writer and novelist. The study moves from the days of the first president, Captain Rickenbacker, to current chief and one-time astronaut, Colonel Borman. The tale
of an index here, or that of an intuitively clear organization. Chapter 2 is entitled “Problems of Location”: it ineludes a section on the design of the household survey. Reading Chapter 3 is like walking through an unkempt maze littered with confusing and repetitive section headings of different orders. Chapter 4 goes by the name of “An Assessment of Travel Priorities and Attitudes” and has section headings relating only to priorities. And so on. Difficulties of presentation carry through to the coneluding sections of the book where the reader will search in vain for some overall summary finding. Instead the statements are piecemeal and detailed. One memorable conelusion is that the difference in the trip making pattern of the carless and the noncarless is not so much in the total
Section
439
number of trips made as in the activities for which trips are made and the places to which they are made. This discovery undermines the traditional definition of carlessness and has an interesting implication for transport policy. Since it is the more far flung and lower priority activities which the carless are kept from enjoying, their opportunities will not be expanded by the introduction of conventional mass transit focussed on serving commuter trips. It is regrettable to report having closed a book dissatisfied. As ever, there is at least one redeeming feature of a bad book though: in the course of wrestling with it the reader is prompted to think hard about other ways of completing a similar exercise. In this case one is stirred to contemplate afresh the measurement, extent and significance of the phenomenon of carlessness.
BRIEF NOTICES World Civil Aircraft Since 1945, Michael Hardy, Scrib-
ner, Shipping and Service Center, Vreeland Avenue, Totowa, NJ 07512, U.S.A., 1979, pp. 128, $10.45. Mail-order customers beware: this is another of those books with a misleading title. In this case the author decided to exclude aircraft introduced after l%9. This droll decision means that the reader will not encounter any information about the Airbus, the Lockheed 1011 Tristar, the DC IO or about smaller aircraft such as Learjets or Cessna Citations. In short, this supposed compendium has nothing on the majority of aircraft one is likely to see. Readers wanting full details on modern aircraft should consider ordering Civil Aircraft of the World, 1978, the companion volume. The book describes the origins, history, development and commercial use of II7 different types of aircraft in use between 1945 and l%9, including old-timers such as the Douglas DC 3, the Ford Tri-Motors and the Junkers JU 52. In this historical sense it is ,an excellent compilation, worthy of a place in every transportation and aviation library. Copious illustrations and concise technical descriptions accompany the text. The otherwise excellent presentation is marred however by the publishers extremely small type-far smaller than what is now before you.
The Airport-From
The strength and main interest of the work lies in its photographs; about half of these date from before 1940.I had never seen such a collection before. Readers should be aware however, that the illustrations are predominantly from the United States. It must be stressed that this text is indeed a “celebration”. It is neither comprehensive, critical nor accurate. Airport planners may appreciate it, as I do, as an amusing view of our efforts, which may help us keep from being too serious about our work.
Diamond Jubilee of Powered Flight: the Evolution of Aircraft Design, Jay D. Pinson (ed.), American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A., 1978, pp. 152, $20.00. A collection of sixteen papers being the proceedings of a conference to mark 75 years of powered flight. The presentation is divided into 25-year segments which highlight the advances in design of the more than 10,000 different concepts of aircraft built and flown since 1903. Contributors review, among others, the contributions of the Wright brothers, progress during World War I, aircraft company designs, the story of the business jet and the space shuttle.
Landing Field to Modern Terminal,
Martin Greif, Mayflower Books, 575 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022, U.S.A., 1979, pp. 192, $12.95. This book describes itself as “the first to celebrate in text and pictures the history of that place of endless fascination-the airport”. Exactly so. We have here an enthusiastic, highly personal account of airfields and terminals since the beginning, featuring close on 200 illustrations. It is rather like the picture album of a proud parent.
From the Captain to the Colonel: an Informal History of Eastern Airlines, Robert J. Sterling, Dial Press, I Dag
Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, U.S.A., 1980, pp. 535, $12.95. This is most readable and entertaining case-study of airline operation and management told by an aviation writer and novelist. The study moves from the days of the first president, Captain Rickenbacker, to current chief and one-time astronaut, Colonel Borman. The tale