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Midland Counties Publications |
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Vickers Valiant - The First V-Bomber by Eric B. Morgan |
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Reviewed By Paul Bradley, #35554 |
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Aerofax series $24.95 The least known of Britain’s strategic bombing force, the Vickers Valiant has not been the subject of a comprehensive book until now. Despite being the first of “V-bombers,” the Valiant was built in smaller numbers than the more famous Victor and Vulcan, and also served for the shortest time - only some 12 years - due to serious structural fatigue. However, the Valiant was the only British bomber to drop atomic weapons, and served in action during the Suez Crisis in 1956. This 128-page book tells the complete story of this interesting aircraft and helps to redress the lack of material on the Valiant. As with all the Aerofax titles, the text covers the aircraft from the initiation of the project through to the last disposal, and covers this ground with a wide-ranging selection of over 150photos, both color and black and white, including a 6-page color section at the back of the book. All the images are excellently reproduced and captioned in detail. Various appendices cover Valiant unit histories, individual aircraft histories, proposed civilian variants, data tables and 16 pages of schematic drawings that would be of great use to the modeler if there were a currently available kit of the Valiant. Author Eric Morgan has a great affection for the subject - he was after all a Valiant crewmember – and this shows in his warm text that is not too heavily burdened by engineering intricacies as many of these books can be. This however does mean that he tends to pass quickly over some of the aircraft’s shortcomings and problems, and his treatment of the abrupt withdrawal from service is equally abrupt. This aside, Morgan tells of the Valiant’s involvement in atomic testing, SAC Bombing competitions and combat use during the 1956 Suez Crisis in Egypt. Overall, this is a nice addition to the Aerofax series and fills a large void in the history of British nuclear bombers. My thanks to Specialty Press for supplying the review sample. Midland Counties books are available at www.specialtypress.com; please add $4.95 per title for shipping. |
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