Review

When building an aircraft kit, I often ask myself, "I wonder what it was like to fly one of these planes?" I'll wonder if the crews that manned them were efficient, or if the machine itself was a maintenance nightmare. One of the best ways to answer of these questions, and learn a little history along the way, are Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces series. Covering subjects mainly from World War One and World War Two, the books start out by describing the development, testing, and combat effectiveness of the subject aircraft. The book will then take you through the life of the aircraft, telling stories of the best who flew that airplane. From reading you can become very familiar with aces such as Erich Hartmann, Heinz Bar, and Manfred Von Richtoven. You may know of Manfred Von Richtoven as the Red Baron, and from reading the Fokker Dr 1 Aces book, you will learn that he went down from being shot in the chest, rather then having a massive aircraft failure. From ten kill aces to 258 kill aces the stories are always very interesting and well told. Pictures of the pilots give readers a face to relate to, as well as shots of the actual aircraft for modeling reference. The color plates are a great addition, allowing one to build a model of his favorite aces' machine. Many different types of aircraft are in the series, sometimes even more then one book on a specific plane, such as the Focke-Wulf Fw190, which has titles on both the Eastern and Western front aces. Other titles include Dolphin and Snipe Aces of World War One, Fokker Dr. 1 Aces of World War One, German Jet Aces of World War Two, and Spad XII/ XIII Aces of World War One. Even if you have no interest of the subject airplane, the stories of the men who flew them are always worth reading, just to know what it took to fly when the times were tough, deep in enemy airspace.