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Dornier Do 335: The Luftwaffe's Fastest Piston-Engine Fighter (Classic)
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Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #570761 in Books
- Published on: 2007-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 128 pages
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
A qualified architect, Eddie J. Creek has for many years worked in partnership with Richard Smith producing a wealth of the most historically accurate line drawings and color artwork so far published on aviation in the Third Reich. As a historian and enthusiast, he has been actively collecting documents and photographs relative to the history of the Luftwaffe for over 30 years. Creek resides in Crowborough, England.
Customer Reviews
The Development of an Advanced Airplane During WW II
At the beginning of World War II the ME-109 fighter was arguably the best fighter in the world. (Arguably because of the Spitfire.) Because Hitler believed that the war was going to be short and of course victorious, he didn't push for the development of new and advanced aircraft. It was only when the war progressed in ways that he couldn't have imagined that he began to allow for the development of more advanced aircraft. One of these was the Do 335, a plane with a tractor engine in front and a pusher engine in the rear. The plane never got into volume production with only about 40 prototypes having been produced. It was the fastest piston engine/propeller aircraft produced. This book is its story. While the plane flew, it was never quite finished with problems remaining with rear engine fires, a weak landing gear, an ejection seat that didn't work being the major of it's failures. The war ended before these got fixed, and by then the development was on jet fighters rather than piston powered.
The interesting part about this book is that it is the story of the development of the plane. You see the problems, their solution, the reaching toward a working version.
If you want to see the one remaining plane, it is at the new Smithsonian museum at Dulles Airport.
The weapon that wasn't
This latest book on the Do 335 is a concise and interesting look at the development of the what was the world's fastest piston engine fighter. In addition to the expected discussions of mechanical details, a careful reading gives several key reasons as to why such a formidable looking plane, unlike the hopeful and dangerous He 162, was never flown in combat despite all the years of creative effort. The opinion of Adolf Galland, the General der Jagflieger of the Luftwaffe is also noted. Additional discussion of the plane's flying characteristics and reasons behind them would have added significantly to appeal of the book.
For a book like this to be truly successful it must abound in photographs of the featured aircraft, which this one certainly does. In fact, contained within is a high quality print of evidently the only WWII era color photograph of the Do 335 that has yet been published. In this reviewer's opinion the camoflage colors match almost exactly the RLM brown 81 and leaf green 82 as seen in the paint chip samples published in the recent books, Luftwaffe Camouflage & Markings, Volumes 1 and 2 by K. A. Merrick and J. Kiroff. The underside color of the plane however looks to be a pale farbton 76 and not the RLM 65 that was officially designated. Interestingly enough, black and white photos of the same plane show a lot less contrast between the two top shades than one might expect. Check it out!
