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Convair Advanced Designs: Secret Projects from San Diego, 1923-1962 |  | Author: Robert E. Bradley
Publisher: Specialty Pr Pub & Wholesalers
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $23.03
as of 7/30/2010 18:05 MDT details
You Save: $11.92 (34%)
New (14) Used (4) from $23.03
Seller: sbd-
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 243822
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 192
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 11.1 x 8.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 1580071333
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.746
EAN: 9781580071338
ASIN: 1580071333
Publication Date: March 15, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Consolidated Vultee, which later became Convair, built some of the world's best flying boats in the 1930s, and the world's best bombers during World War II. Convair's six-engine B-36 strategic bomber was credited with keeping the world safe during the early throes of the Cold War. But before all these great aircraft took to the skies, scores of ideas and concepts were proposed and analyzed by company management to determine if production would even be feasible.
Convair Advanced Designs is a book that brings these futuristic, but stillborn, concepts to life for the very first time. This book features many never-before-seen company photographs, models, and drawings of such futuristic concepts as a folding-rotor anti-submarine patrol bomber and a giant seaplane passenger transport launched from a high-speed rail car! Readers will also be fascinated to see how certain seemingly unbelievable designs evolved into actual production airplanes years later, such as the giant Convair Tradewind turboprop seaplane transport.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 Convair could-have-been planes July 27, 2010
Engine Jack
The Convair Advance Design book was very interesting. Many unknown and interesting aircraft designs were written about. The biggest problem that I had with the book was that some of the drawings that were used had small type in them. With all of the computer graphics that are available, the type size could have been increased.
I hope that more books like this will be published about other aircraft companies such as Douglas and Boeing.
Fascinating Look at a Hidden Design Bureau July 24, 2010
P. Schmidt (Chicago, Illinois USA)
Everyone in aviation knows about the futuristic designs that were born from Lockheed's "Skunk Works". Most know about some of the impressive designs to come from Convair. This book highlights many interesting designs that are not so well known, as well as famous ones like the B-36.
Each type of plane designed by the Convair group, as long as it qualified at the time as an advanced design, is included in these pages. For each type, the genesis and operational history (if any) is provided in clear text, and accompanied by various photos, design drawings, and in some case cutaway views.
This is well worth a look by any airplane history enthusiast.
 Incredible research project June 10, 2010
James Atkins (Twentynine Palms, CA USA)
I get the impression that the author spent a few years buried in the Convair archives at the San Diego Aerospace Museum digging up all of this arcane information. Given the sheer numbers of entries and the limits on how big a given book can be, I don't much miss a lot of data on each entry. Probably, there isn't much available on a lot of these prujects, because they were (mercifully) terminated at an early stage. It is facinating to review the Consolidated penchant for flying boats and amphibians of all sizes, shapes and roles.
A fascinating and informative browse for the non-specialist general reader May 10, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The aircraft manufacturer Consolidated Vultee (later to be renamed 'Convair') built 'flying boats' in the 1930s, those aircraft that could land and take off on water. Then in World War II they produced Convair's six-engine B-36 strategic bombers that played such a vital role in the outcome of that global conflict. While famous for the planes they built, what is not generally known is that from their very beginning, they were also very involved in aeronautical research and development, looking to the future of aviation. "Convair Advanced Designs: Secret Projects from San Diego, 1923-1962", compiled and annotated by Robert Bradley, is a 192-page illustrated compendium of ideas and concepts that were generated, but which never materialized. Replete with company photographs, models, and drawings of 'futuristic' aviation concepts as a folding-rotor anti-submarine patrol bomber, a giant seaplane passenger transport to be launched from a high-speed rail car, and many other fanciful designs, "Convair Advanced Designs: Secret Projects from San Diego, 1923-1962" is a unique 'window in time' giving us access to the kinds of imaginative proposals the aeronautical engineers of one of the nation's most prestigious aviation companies came up with. A valued addition to academic library 20th Century Aviation History collections, "Convair Advanced Designs: Secret Projects from San Diego, 1923-1962" will prove to be a fascinating and informative browse for the non-specialist general reader with an interest in American aviation.
Almost superb April 22, 2010
James Poitras (Canterbury, NH United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book follows the pack of recent references including the "Secret Projects" series. Unlike those books this one only, obviously, follows the products of Consolidated/Convair Aviation from that company's formation to its evolution into General Dynamics.
For those of you who enjoyed the books on German Secret Projects of WW2 or followed the web site 'Luft'46' you will find much the same format, with short discussion about each project and at least one picture per project, which is why I did not give this book five stars.
Missing from this book are any charts or tables clearly defining the performance parameters of any of the projects which either made it into production or lingered on the drafting boards. Also receiving short change in the project descriptions is anything more than a short explanation of the military or commercial requirement each project was designed to satisfy.
In short this book is an excellent initial resource for those interested in the history of American aviation, listing most of the projects carried out by Convair, but for more depth you will have to look elsewhere.
That said, I certainly hope that this will become the forerunner of a series highlighting each of the major American manufacturers.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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