Cockpit: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Interiors Paperback – September 12, 2006

If you go to an airshow, or click on any number of aviation websites, you will see some spectacular views of aircraft. But as snazzy as the photos(or the real thing)are, they all have one failing- you are looking at the outside of the airplane. If you're a pilot, you're not going to be outside of the Bird while you're zooming fearlessly through the skies, but you ARE going to be looking at the instrument panel,depending it to help you figure out what's happening while you're zooming.....For the past six years, Dan Paterson, Donald Nijboer and the folks at Sellers Publishing have performed a signal service to the Aviation community by taking some truly gorgeous shots of cockpits and panels that most of us (non-Military) pilots will see only in our dreams,on the sheet above the monthly calendar. I keep my Cockpit Calender right next to my computer, so while the machine is booting up, shutting down, crashing or whatever,I have something nice to look at and study that my Wife doesn't complain about, and that also is suitable for showing to the Grandkids (something that can't be said for some nose-art calendars). And let's face it - how many times can you look at a B-25 at dusk,or a P-47 over clouds or whatever ? It gets boring after a while.From 2004 to 2008,this annual calendar featured cockpits from World War II. For 2009 the venue has been changed to display cockpits of the Cold War,a welcome change.The 12 X 12 format allows considerable detail of knobs, switches and instruments to be seen and appreciated. Each cockpit shot has an index of instruments and switch locations, ,to help you find your way around the cockpit. Whether it is a MiG-21F(February), Avro Vulcan(July),SR-71 (September),or A-1H(January),or eight more legendary cockpits, you have thirty or thirty one days to examine and revel in the intricacies and subtleties of each panel. The color is vivid, and true. The photos are sharp and focused. And in this depersonalized age of glass cockpits, it is nice to see the festival of steam gauges, manual knobs, and throttle setups. Highly recommended

Short summaries of each aircraft history - the brevity of which means there are inaccuracies through editing.The keys to instruments are generally accurate but not always. One or two artificial horizons are identified as direction indicators when the terms is used elsewhere in the book for the gyro compass.The pilot summaries of what it was like to fly the type and work in the cockpit are much more interesting.The pictures - the color pictures are beautifully shot!Buy it for the pictures.

This is a great book with a lot of detail information on each aircraft!!I got it for my son who is in college training to be a commercial pilot.He is a WW II history enthusiast and has built several tanks, ships andaircraft. He loved it!!! Unfortunately, the hardback I purchased wasmoisture damaged and I had to return it. I ended up buying the paperbackversion, which has the same content from a local national bookstore.

If you are into WWII history, this is a must book. Gives one a real sense of what those pilots and crew members had to deal with inflight. Like the first Spitfire pilots having to handpump up the landing gear after takeoff. A very, very good visual book.

I felt this to be a good reference book for me as I build models of WW II aircraft. I'd recommend it.

Great book, great deal... very informative for military aircraft!

Our friend who is a World War Two model maker was thrilled with the details included in this book.

Very informative book with lots of detail. Cockpit pictures are great. Very nice reference book to have. Need one on armaments.

very good but would like more photos of the complete c/pit

GREAT GOOD CONDITION FOR THE PRICE MANY THANKS

The book came with everything I needed. Pictures of the cockpits were really well done. My only negative about the book was "more pictures". Pictures of the cockpit from 2 different views. That would have made the book perfect in my eyes and in the manner I needed it for. That being said I STILL feel it was very well done.

A must for airplanes modelers. Exceptionals pictures.