Publication Date:January 1, 2004 Shipping:Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
Editorial Reviews:
Product Description Although many books have been published about the B-29, none has been an in-depth look, with most being either superficial pictorials or focusing on the bombing campaigns, particularly the incendiary attacks and atomic bombings. This book, using rare, pre
Customer Reviews: The awesome result of complete research!May 18, 2006 Biff Johnson(sacramento, ca United States) 17 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is book that every famous plane deserves.Every aspect of the plane is covered.That is an understatement!It is all here.Great photos of the plane from Pima Air Museum(another must see).This is definitely a technical book that delves deep into the design,opearation,and logistics of a plane that has remained elusive though known by almost everybody because of its place in history.This book will give all the aviation lovers something to savor for hours on end.
In Defense of a Labor of Love and Years of Research (See BillH review)August 27, 2007 William Wolf(Fountain Hills, AZ USA) 5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Like many of my fellow aviation writers, this B-29 book and my seven other books (amateurs write one book for a vanity press) were done as a labor of love and the many years of research and writing certainly are not equally remunerated monetarily. So when reading a review such as that by BillH that does not comment on the quality and quantity of the text but focuses on the quality of hundreds of B&W and original color photos and on the rare original B-29 drawings and charts; it is much like saying that someone's baby is ugly.
The B&W photos originally showed their 60 years as did the drawings and charts from yellowed manuals. Many of the photos and drawings were actually enhanced from the originals. One manual had a bullet hole through it! As for using a professional photographer, this was not allowed by Pima and would be exceeding expensive (as I found when engaging a professional photographer for my daughter's wedding!). Access to the aircraft was only allowed for a very short period of time during closing hours. With the bomber's limited interior space, lighting considerations, framing, and focusing were very difficult. The quality of the drawings and photos in this book certainly equals or exceeds that of the only other available B-29 books (e.g. Crowood (200 pages), Warbird Tech (96 pages), and B-29 Combat Photo Diary (160 pages, paperback).
Portions of the text, are paraphrased from original B-29 manuals and official publications and documents, and put into layman's terms as that method best explains the various too technical aspects and components of the bomber. From what other sources besides these rare materials could an "ultimate look" be written? There is some repetition only to clarify and maintain continuity of the overlapping components being discussed in different sections of the book. As the bibliography shows, the book used literally 100's of sources from my collection of 16,000 WW-2 books and magazines and 15,000 feet of official WW-2 aviation microfilm.
Since the book was so detailed it was difficult to write captions that would add any new information. Many readers do not read a book of this size from cover to cover but use it as a reference. They thumb though it, looking at photos and reading captions first to find subjects of interest in the text.
The book is meticulously organized and contains an extensive index. At 360 pages and 500+ drawings and photos from many rare sources; this book is by far the most comprehensive, detailed "Ultimate Look" on the B-29 to date.
Worth the moneyJuly 13, 2009 JCAL 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Comprehensive in it's scope. Another volume covering postwar use and and the B-50 would be welcome. The chapters on support and Airfields were a welcome if unexpected bonus.
Great Material - Poor ProductionJanuary 27, 2008 C. F. Gurney 4 out of 6 found this review helpful
While the author has previously criticized another reviewer for pointing out that the photographs, both modern and contemporary, are of poor quality, I have to add my voice to the fact that somewhere, either in pre-production or at the press, someone let Dr. Wolf down.
Dr. Wolf in my opinion, demonstrates mastery of the topic and his access to a very wide range of materials. I think the text is fine and while we can all use the services of an accomplished editor, one will find many books, even those published by major houses, full of issues that an experienced editor will have corrected.
I was most disappointed by the quality of the black and white photographic reproductions in the book. Something in the production workflow had to have gone awry as these photos end up blurred, murky and with poor contrast. Modern photo pre-production allows even the most damaged or compromised original to be enhanced and photos that I believe have appeared elsewhere in perfectly fine order are here not what one expects. Whatever the cause, it is a legitimate criticism of the finished product.
That all said, if you are looking to round out your technical information on this aircraft or are looking for a complete discussion of the development and deployment of one of the most complex aircraft up to that time, then this is the book for you.
A lot of material, poorly presentedJuly 14, 2007 BillH(DeForest, WI USA) 9 out of 14 found this review helpful
Wiliam Wolf's "Boeing B-29 Superfortress" is awash in detail covering every aspect of the bomber from earliest development to the final missions at the end of WWII in the Pacific.
That said, the book was a great disappointment to me. The author has clearly researched every detail of the bomber's history and has an impressive bibliography at the end of the book. Nevertheless, the entire presentation seems amaturish. The book badly needs an editor. The text, often parphrased from or quoted from manuals and government publications of the day is sometimes repetitive. Occasionally, directions to the printer to insert pictures in particular locations are left in.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the book is the illustrations and photographs. The graphic content is crucial for a book like this; every reader wants to see the wealth of pictoral detail the author tries to present. Unfortunately, most of the black and white photos and reproductions of drawings and charts are muddy and indistict. Even worse, while the author was allowed complete access to the B-29 in the collection of the Pima Air Museum, he failed to engage a professional photographer or even to learn basic lighting techniques himself. The result is that nearly all the color pictures of the B-29 interior and exterior details are glaringly lighted by the single flash on his camera, leaving some detail washed out and over-exposed and other components lost in shadow. A simple bounce flash or two-flash technique would have produced much better results. A couple of pictures are even blurry because of camera movement or poor focus. This was a unique opportunity to illustrate a rare aircraft wasted.
Picture captions, usually used to impart information that supplements the text of a book and to describe some unique features of the illustration, are, in this book, simply a sentence or two lifted from the nearby text without modification.
In a history and reference book such as this, a comprehensive index is essential. The index in this book is scanty.
Anyone with an interest in the B-29 will want to read this book. Because of its poor quality, I suggest borrowing a copy or buying it used.
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