U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats Part 1 Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Detail and Scale is back with their first electronic title in their Color and Markings series: U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats Part 1. This title follows their previous releases including: F3H Demon in Detail and Scale and F9F Cougar in Detail and Scale which are not only one of the best references for the these aircraft, but are also the best book titles I've seen using the various interactive features of the iPad and Kindle. What does that mean to you?

• You can use menu hyperlinks to jump straight to a section of interest
• You can expand photos and drawings to full-screen
• You can zoom in on details in photos and drawings for a closer look
• You can search for specific text within the title
• You can bookmark items of interest
• You can highlight and annotate the book with your own notes

As before, the authors throw off the shackles of conventional publishing including page counts and the limitations of printing color photos. If you can remember the original Colors and Markings of the F-14 Tomcats, all of the colorful examples of the F-14s that were assigned to east coast squadrons were condensed into 64 pages and most of those photos were black and white. In this new title, Bert Kinzey and Rock Roszak have made good use of the electronic publication as this title is over 500 pages and crammed full of great color photos and color profiles. Take a look at the summary differences between old and new:

You can see in the sample pages below that this is still the thorough Detail and Scale format, but there's lots more of it at your fingertips. What's more, my iPad is no heavier with 500 more pages of reference inside...

Coverage includes:

• Tomcat Paint Schemes
• U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet Squadrons
• U.S. Navy Atlantic Reserve Squadrons
• Grumman Prototype and Test Aircraft
• Atlantic Coast Test and Evaluation Tomcats

Here is a good example of the power of electronic publications when the publisher knows what they're doing. Below is a photo of an F-14A from VF-14 wearing Bicentennial colors that was embedded in one of the pages. As the images above illustrate, the title is oriented to portrait mode and rotating the tablet won't change that BUT when you select a photo, it opens up into a larger view that can be rotated into a larger landscape view (below left). How many times have we wanted to get a closer look at a given photo to see a name or bureau number? I used the two-finger spread and enlarged the photo to its maximum size (below right) and I can read the bureau number. Nice!

In all, seventeen squadrons are given full-color coverage showing their early high-visibility color schemes and how these evolved into the final low-visibility tactical schemes before these squadrons deactivated or transitioned into Hornets/Super Hornets.

Head over to Amazon or the iTunes Store and order a copy. This technology is also truly instant gratification as the title will download to your tablet on completion of your purchase.

For more information about this and other titles, visit their website.

Definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Detail & Scale for this review copy.