william gren floatplane book

I have the whole set starting from Vol I thru Vol 10 (Bombers.) I believe more volumes were planned but never got to publication.

I also have WG sets on famous fighters (2 vols) and famous bombers (2 vols) All the volumes are a kinda of dog eared and tattered from one to many thumbings. The material is still good. I would think if the publisher were to reprint them there will be a good market for the books for its about the only publication that has all the versions of a particular aircraft, as well as information on rare aircraft.

i think so too.

I doubt any of them will be reprinted, as they contain a number of factual errors, and also omit some types that should have been included. This is no knock on Green--I have all the books you mention, also quite dog-eared, and it's my opinion we wouldn't have high-quality aviation literature if he hadn't set the standard back in the late 50's and early

60's. It's just that he based these works on the first flush of facts after WWII, and many of the things that were 'known' later turned out not to be true. The floatplane and flying boat books are the only ones that are close to indispensible today, though any of the material on French aircraft is hard to come by otherwise in English. Green's Complete Book of Fighters, a much more recent book, covers the fighters far better (though of course it isn't limited in scope to WWII), and he did a series for Arco some years ago that covered the Soviet, British, Japanese and US fighters. And, of course, there's so much else that has been done in the field since then.

Mark Schynert

he could update them. i did have to catch up from the 70's on a bunch of ac.

William Green and his writing partners produced some of the finest books ever done on aircraft.

His Aircraft of the World books and Air Forces of the World are the best single sources for tons of material. Warplanes of the Third Reich is possibly the best single subject aviation book ever published.

Add to that the hundreds of magazine articles and you have the grand old man of aviation history.

Tom

WG's books contain aircraft of that significant era that so fascinates many of us, aircraft that in some way or another was involved in or participated in WWII. An addendum to each volume will be more than enough to update the material and direct us to do our research using more up to date resources. To update Green's opus with aircraft of other eras will destroy its focus and its historical context, context being the still fresh memories of WWII during the

50s.

I believe the volumes should be reprinted in its original entirety because the material does give a good idea of the state of knowledge and the conventional wisdom at that time. If one is made aware of the inaccuracies that awareness even helps to develop one's critical faculties. For example there were certain claims that didn't feel right when I first read WG's writings but he was the best authority then. My suspicions were subsequently proved to be correct by later writings, a few even by WG himself. That was a very satisfying feeling but of no consequence to anyone else.

The drawings Green's books are not up to today's standards in detail. This has its advantages for to include enormous amount details would have produced unwieldy and unpublishable books. I am more than satisfied to use his volumes as an excellent overview of the subject matter. So will many readers who really need a good single source to provide a broad picture.

I suppose he's still with us. I haven't heard anything to the contrary and I think that here I would hear of it. I occasionally wonder how Fred Henderson's doing since the modelling column ceased in Air International.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Well, FWIW, A Google search does not reveal obits on either William Green or Fred Henderson. Green's most recent publication that I've seen is 2001.

Mark Schynert

i wonder if wg builds kits? or would he go nuts and never finish one because of details?