1001 Aviation Facts Book Review

By Davd L. Veres

Review

Seeking a neat stocking-stuffer for aviation enthusiasts? Grab 1001 Aviation Facts from Specialty Press.

Spanning 322 pages and eight chapters, it's full of fascinating facts and trivia:

• Chapter 1: The Beginning
• Chapter 2: Military Aviation
• Chapter 3: Experimental Research Aircraft
• Chapter 4: Commercial Aviation
• Chapter 5: General and Sport Aviation
• Chapter 6: Aviation in the Media
• Chapter 7: Pilots, Designers and Personalities
• Chapter 8: Aircraft Models

Ever wonder why A/T-37s sport nose strakes? This book tells why. And did you know that the first four-engine airliner to soar through US skies was the Dutch-designed Fokker F-32? Neither did I.

"Aviation in the Media" proved particularly neat. Want the total of films the oddly ubiquitous Capelis XC-12 appeared in? It's here. And in what "forgettable" aviation movie did comely Mary Tyler Moore make her screen debut? That's here, too.

Cool, too, was the concluding "Aircraft Models" chapter. To my surprise, I learned that the first model airplane book appeared in 1910. But "World of Plastic" coverage skews heavily toward Revell entries – with nary a note of Hawk's pioneering industry role.

The devil lurks, some say, in details. Here, gremlins haunt some specifics.

That's Swoosie Kurtz, for instance – not "Kurts". Northrop's SM-62 Snark derives its name from a Lewis Carroll poem – not from wedding the words "snake" and "shark". And while the legendary Ilyushin Il-2 began production as a single-seater, it forged fame as a two-place ground-attack aircraft – not as a fighter.

But I nitpick. The subtitle tells it all: "Amazing and Little-known Information About All Aspects of Aviation".

I'd also add "Fun" to that description!

My sincere thanks to Specialty Press for this review sample!