BOOK REVIEWS

The reviews immediately following are from: F3H Demon in Detail & Scale (Digital Detail & Scale Series) 

5.0 out of 5 stars – F3H Demon in Detail & Scale, March 8, 2014

I gave this book five stars because it continues the tradition of the Detail & Scale series print books for giving modelers and aviation fans the information they’re looking for regarding specific aircraft. Specifically, for modelers, as the title indicates, “detail” – close-up photos of almost every area is shown in clear photos, with drawings and text explaining differences between variants, cockpits, external stores carried, etc. A nice historical section is also included with narratives by former pilots of what the Demon was like to fly. With the changeover to the digital format, much more info and photos could be included. With an Ipad or Kindle Reader, it is portable and can be used on the workbench with normal care. Apps are available so it can be downloaded to your PC, as well. Recommended to modelers and others with an interest in the U.S. Navy’s F3H Demon series of carrier-based fighters of the 1950 -60 era.

By roy109

5.0 out of 5 stars – Detail and Scale is back and better than ever!   January 10, 2014

Detail and Scale is back and high-tech as well. Those of us who’ve been modeling for a few years (decades) will have one or more of these essential titles in our libraries to help understand the differences between aircraft variants of a given subject and how to make our own models more accurate. The problem with the ‘analog’ references were many: the author invariably left tons of material out of the book due to limitations of page count; great reference photos were mere postage stamps in final copy; and, once a title was released, it was finished. Here is the first title in this new electronic series, the F3H Demon. The title is published in iBook (iPad/iPhone) and Kindle formats using the latest in ebook authoring tools. What does that mean to you?

• You can use menu hyperlinks to jump straight to a section of interest

• You can expand photos and drawings to full-screen

• You can zoom in on details in photos and drawings for a closer look

• You can search for specific text within the title

• You can bookmark items of interest

• You can highlight and annotate the book with your own notes

In this title, the author starts off with the history of radar and its employment with night fighters and interceptors from World War II into the 1950s. This is an essential strand of history as the F3H Demon was developed as one of the first radar-equipped fighters that could employ the first radar-guided missile – the Sparrow. Given the success of the Sparrow (eventually) and radar, the Demon’s story should be rather uneventful, but such was not the case. Coverage of the subject starts with the F3H-1N – while the aircraft and avionics were promising, the Westinghouse J40 engine was very unreliable leading to all F3H-1s to be grounded wherever in the world they were and never to be flown again. The Navy recognized the potential of the Demon and the story gets more interesting as a replacement engine is sought, so for all of you who wondered why the Demon didn’t receive the J57 like most other aircraft of the day, the author provides some interesting insight. Because this title is in electronic form, you receive all of that good information that might have been lost in hardcopy format. This title is 297 pages with over 340 photos and over 50 illustrations. Coverage includes:

• Developmental History

• Demon Variants

• F3H Demon Pilot’s Report ‘Demon Daze’

• A Demon Restoration

• Demon Details

• Squadrons, Deployments, and Markings

• Modeler’s Section

   

One aspect of these electronic titles that I really appreciate is that my iPad is the same size and weight no matter how many are loaded at any given time. This allows me the flexibility to access the information more interactively on the work bench and still allow me to read while on travel (waiting on flights, etc.). With all of the great information packed into this new interactive title, you’re still able to purchase this at a very low price! Definitely recommended!

By Michael C. Benolkin “Michael Benolkin” (Fort Wayne, IN USA)

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5.0 out of 5 stars – First Class All The way,    February 7, 2014

Bert Kinzey is justifiably famous for producing some of the landmark “detail” books on aircraft. With this foray into e-publishing he has taken that high standard up several notches in detail completeness, and magnificent color. The addition of extensive & highly detailed color diagrams by his colleague Rock Roszak is a real plus for this e-publishing genre. If you ever wanted to know anything about the Demon, don’t miss this work…and look for his follow-on publications, starting with Grumman’s “Cougar”!

By Gerald K Bishop

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5.0 out of 5 stars – outstanding,    February 3,

This is all the good things and then some, that we expect from this series of books. Great format, well written and many new details and illustrations.

By wf26

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5.0 out of 5 stars – F3H Demon in Detail & Scale,    February 2, 2014

Before I bought this book, I’d already known that the F3H Demon had a less-than-happy career in U.S. Navy service. As good as the Detail & Scale line of books has been, this one was a real eye-opener. Even if you’re not building a model of the Demon, the technical information, history and ‘sea stories’ in this book make it a fun read. For the modeler, it’s a trove of info on airframe, armament, production and service details. One of the best among a great series of books.

By Mike Still

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5.0 out of 5 stars – Good to see the series again,    January 12, 2014

I have always enjoyed this series. Many years ago I watched my father scratch build an F3H and this would have been an enormous help. I plan to use when I build the F3H.

By Jack Berke

 

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The following are excerpts from a review published by Modeler’s Alliance:

Created and Published on Modeler’s Alliance,    Sunday, 16 February 2014

For many years, I have collected books on various subjects and the most consistently accurate aviation books which I added upon publication announcement were the Detail and Scale series. I was surprised not to see any releases and thought the publisher had ceased operation until I read about their new book on the Demon. Visiting the site, I was surprised again when I found out Detail & Scale will be publishing digital books.

While I agree digital book publishing is the direction of the future, for modeling purposes, I have my reservations. Fortunately, I asked questions and was offered a copy to review. It was stated that the books are optimized for iPads but that there was a Kindle version available. While I do not have a Kindle, I did download the Kindle for PC application. The book was delivered electronically from Amazon and the turnaround was nearly instantaneous. Having high speed Internet meant that I did not wait long for the book to download and I was able to start going through it.

The content of the book is every bit as good as expected. Bert Kinzey has done his usual exemplary job of getting the text to be informative, entertaining, and relevant to both modelers and historians. Pilot’s reports are included along with interviews of those most familiar with the Demon. The book, on the Kindle platform, doesn’t have page numbers but there are divisions which let you jump to particular sections. After the cover, copyright notice, information on the author and illustrator, there is a foreword, an introduction, and eight Chapters:

1. Developmental History 2. Demon Variants 3. F3H Demon Pilots’ Report “Demon Daze” 4. A Demon Restoration 5. Demon Details 6. Squadrons, Deployments, and Markings 7. Modelers’ Section (One of the reasons I bought so many D&S books) 8. More from Detail & Scale (Books on the Cougar and Banshee are next!)

One thing I noticed, the color photography is very well done and the resolution is high. Zooming in on the images revealed no loss of detail. Captions are well done and builds confidence in what one is seeing as it is explained by someone who knows. Many times, we modelers come across walk around photo sets and truly do not know what we are looking at.

A great thing about the digital format is the use of hyperlinks to visit other sites with images and information. Not having an iPad, a fellow modeler did inform me that the book has several features not available to the Kindle and he is quite pleased.

Written by sharkmouth

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The following review is located Scale Modelling Now, an online only scale modeling magazine. The weblink is: http://www.scalemodellingnow.com/bookreviewsaircraft-f3h-demon-detail-scale

Review by Geoff Coughlin (February 2014) Our sincere thanks to Bert Kinzey and Rock Roszak at Detail & Scale for supplying our download – you can see a lot more at their website… Fantastic! This is the only word I can use to sum up what we have here and you’ll see why I am raving about this new ‘e-book’ by reading my review below and taking a look at the sample photos supplied. At last, what we have is a major publisher specialising in modelling reference books (and others) that has seen the huge value and potential of the Internet – the ability to offer you the modeller so much more for far less money than if you buy a paper book or magazine. This is exactly what SMN is all about and continues to be since we launched four years ago. What are you getting? Available in both Apple iBook and Amazon Kindle format

• Over 53,000 words of text that provide details on the development and history of the Demon not available in any other publication

• First volume in the Digital Detail & Scale series

• Over 340 photographs, with more than 140 of these being detail shots that Detail & Scale is known for

• More than 50 art renderings of aircraft profiles, unit logos and cockpit details

• A detailed Modellers’ Section discussing all of the currently available F3H kits, and what it takes to make an accurate model of this aircraft.

What do we think? Let me put some more meat on the bones… You can see by the stats above that what you are getting is a book that’s special – highly professional in content and production that ‘works’ exactly as it should and is simplicity itself to download. As soon as I downloaded the book to my iPad, there it was sitting on my shelf in iBooks – great and a double-tap and I was into it. My intention had been to just take a quick look and come back later; err, no… some 45 minutes later and Sara is saying – “the tea’s on the table!” really, I was so quickly and totally absorbed in what is on offer I couldn’t put it down. Now that is rare indeed – I see so many books but this, this is something special. The F3H is covered in excellent depth with many useful captions and notes highlighting the differences between the sub types that will need to be considered when you making your chosen model. The tail, wings and seat are all areas that clearly cause the kit manufacturers to get confused and produce kits that will need correcting and modifying to generate an accurate model and all of these revisions are clearly illustrated in the book – excellent! Photographs and profiles The quality of both is extremely high and this adds greatly to the title and the addition of supporting photographs always helps to illustrate what is being discussed. Modellers’ section The latter part of the book takes you through all the kits and accessories available at the time of writing and there are some beautifully finished F3H Demon models on show to whet your appetite. The relative strengths and weaknesses of the different F3H Demon kits is fully shown and I like that a lot – you aren’t groping around trying to find the information you need for each, all is clearly in front of you. In summary This is the best book I have seen in a long time, by any standards a stunning reference for the type and a genuine one-stop-shop for anyone interested in the F3H Demon, its variants and models. You can just have your iPad propped up in front of you when working at you bench and merrily dip into and out of all the different sections depending on what you are working on. The price is spot on in my view and you just have to think about the $9.99 it will cost you versus the outstanding quality and quantity of content. Simply stunning and highly recommended. If I were you, I would also go and visit the Detail & Scale website at www.detailandscale.com. There are numerous photograph sets of a variety of aircraft on display from the Detail & Scale collection.