Aircraft Type Collection

When my father came back from a visit to the Industrial Fair in Hannover in 1961 he brouht me the booklet 86 Flugzeugtypen together with the catalogue of the German Air Fair (Deutsche Luftfahrtschau). This booklet, pictured right made me an enthusiast for propliners once forever.

There was another book which biased me to civil aviation, Die Beherrschung der Luft from John Stroud, the German, revised edition of The World Airways. I loaned it from the local library in the early 1960's for month, even for more than a year long.

Of great importance for been was also the 1959 catalog from Revell Germany. I did not have much kits from this catalog, not even aircarft, but browsing this catalogue ever and ever again as a ten or eleven year old boy has been one of the key experiences shaping my interest in aviation. In this catalogue the kits were arranged in a consistent list format, depicted with a black & white drawing and with a comprehensive caption. One could consider it as my first aircraft type reference book.

I assume I got the 1961 Flugzeuge der Welt, the German issue of the Observer's Book of Aircraft from William Green the same year as it was published. Next years' issues followed. This series let me get aquainted with contemporary civil and military aircraft. And these books introduced a new subject for me: Three view drawings. From now on I hunted for these and declared a book on aircraft only as good if there were 3-views included. The first Observers were followed by William Green's 1964 Aircraft Handbook and the 1963 3rd. edition of The Aircraft of the World, which dealt with all aircraft still operative in the early sixties. There was another aircraft type reference book, Ken's Flugzeugtypen, which I also got from the library. There where 3-views but not for every entry and beeing written in German it was not so trendy for a schoolboy as my English language books. Only now I bought it for my collection.

In 1963 or 1964 at the age of fourteen there came just abother subject: World War II aircraft. Fighters were introduced to me by the series War Planes of the Second World War by William Green. There were not only treated just the most famous fighters but there were treated all fighters from all countries which saw prototype or operational status in WW II. Amazig books, then and now. I look them up still today, though my interest in WW II warplanes has dercreased markedly. The bomber issues were not yet issued and for bombers I had to rely on the two volumes of Famous Bombers from the same author, which a reduced scope of types.

More and more books followed, examples of which are the Proflie Publication series which introduced colored profile drawings and the Putnam series of Aicraft manufacturer's monographies.

Regarding aviation magazines I regularily bought the German Flugrevue since January 1963, the Swiss industrial magazine Interavia since 1965 from my newsagent. In 1967 I subscribed to Flying Review.

I 1974 I had the bad idea to quit my my interest in aviation and I offered my books and magazines for sale. These are the original lists of my books and magazines. One positive effect was that I got money to buy an HP electronic calculator for my engineering studies, which was very expensive in those times. But abstinence did not last long. And I got as mad on aicraft as ever. So most books I present here I later "bought back" as seconhand.