Boeing F4B Book Review
By David L. Veres
| Date of Review | December 2023 | Title | Boeing F4B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Steve Ginter | Publisher | Ginter Books |
| Published | 2023 | ISBN | 978-1-7349727-7-1 |
| Format | 116 pages, softbound | MSRP (USD) | $44.95 |
Review
Let’s cut to the chase: if you’re at all interested in interbellum US Navy warplanes, grab this lavishly illustrated tome from Ginter Books.
Number 116 in the publisher’s celebrated “Naval Fighters” series, Boeing F4B: And Export Variants expertly recaps development, deployment, and disposition of Boeing’s iconic, Depression-era design.
Coverage spans 160 lavishly illustrated pages. And fascinating facts tincture text.
Did you know that, in February 1932, F4Bs aboard USS Saratoga “simulated an attack” on Army Air Corps installations on Oahu, Hawaii? “Surprise,” Dann reports, “was complete in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor nine years later.”
As with most Ginter titles, scale modelers will love it. Super-detailing your 1:32-scale Hasegawa kit? Radically updating Aurora’s ancient, 1:48 effort? You’ll lick your eyebrows at the sheer number of period shots and archival images.
Dann’s meaty monograph boasts metaphorical mountains of minutiae. Clear reference photos map F4B details – nose-to-tail, tip-to-tip, top-to-bottom, inside-out.
Fuselage. Wings. Stabilizers. Struts. Interiors. Armament. Ordinance. Livery. Even flare racks and gun cameras.
Did you know, for instance, that F4Bs sported detachable “leather cockpit wind break[s]” – doubtlessly to mitigate Boeing’s understandably drafty pilot’s perch? I didn’t, either. But add them to your 1:72 Monogram classic on a shipboard diorama – and watch the comments fly!
Superb line drawings also chart design evolution and variant nuances. And markings mavens will especially appreciate page 91’s F4B-4 stencil diagram.
But what scale(s) are those drawings? And who prepared them? Someone certainly deserves an “atta boy/girl”!
Sections on F4B drones, survivors, “odds and ends”, and – intriguingly – replicas also augment the account. And four pages of model coverage recap available F4B kits to 1:87, 1:72, 1:48, and 1:32 scales.
Now, Mr. Dann … pretty please, topped with heaping helpings of sugar … devote your clearly considerable talents to an equally sumptuous study of Curtiss’ SBC Helldiver biplane dive bombers!
Puh-leeeeeze!
Robustly recommended!
With thanks to Ginter Books!