January's Book Vote and Last Month's Results

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you have a successful and happy 2018. A new year means a new month, and with that comes a new book vote. January's book vote is focusing on our X-Planes series, so if you're a fan of experimental aircraft and high-tech military prototypes, this is one for you!

Below is a list of the options. Have a read of the descriptions and click the link to make your vote!

Research Jets of World War II

While World War II raged, pioneering aircraft and engine designers were busy developing the world’s first practical jet-powered research aircraft, to test and prove the new technology. This book would examine the aircraft that paved the way for Germany’s Me 262 and Britain’s Meteor, including the Heinkel He 178 and He 280, Caproni Campini N.1, and Gloster E.28/39, F.9/37 and E.1/44.

Avro CF-105 Arrow

The Avro Arrow is one of the great Cold War ‘what-ifs’. Designed to be Canada’s interceptor of the 1950s and beyond, the Arrow was a delta-winged design with an internal weapons bay and a pioneering stability augmentation system and early fly-by-wire controls. But like Britain’s TSR2, development was expensive and orders for hi-tech military aircraft were mired in politics. In 1959, with no foreign orders forthcoming, the Arrow was cancelled – killing the most advanced fighter of the 1950s, and Avro Canada with it.

Parasite Fighters 1910s-1950s

Usually small, agile, and short-range, ‘parasite fighters’ allow long-range aircraft to carry and launch their own escorts. The first concepts coupled high-performance biplane fighters to airship motherships, which enabled fighters to be launched already at altitude and far from land bases. World War II saw the relatively successful Soviet Zveno experiments, with Tupolev heavy bombers carrying Polikarpov fighters-bombers. The new strategic bombers of the 1950s brought renewed efforts, with the tiny XF-85 Goblin the most famous, before aerial refuelling and the dawn of the SAM made the concept redundant.

Cold War Jet Seaplanes

An ingenious solution to the problems operating early jets from carrier decks, jet-powered seaplane fighters had a brief moment in the limelight in the late 1940s and early ’50s. Britain’s Saunders-Roe SR./A.1 and America’s Convair F2Y Sea Dart were built to develop the concept, and the Sea Dart became the world’s first and only supersonic seaplane. Meanwhile, Martin developed the P6M Seamaster as a jet-powered flying boat strategic bomber, and Beriev in the Soviet Union designed a series of jet flying boats through the rest of the Cold War.

Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne

The US Army’s first dedicated attack helicopter, the AH-56 was a fast, single-engined compound helicopter of the 1960s, designed from the ground up to use the most advanced anti-armour weapons available. As the Vietnam War intensified, the Huey-based AH-1 Cobra was brought into service, meant to be an interim gunship while the problems with the Cheyenne and its novel rotor systems were ironed out. But by 1972, following a fatal crash, the programme was cancelled. The experience of the Cheyenne project was put to use in the replacement programme, which produced the very successful but more conventional AH-64 Apache.

Make your vote by clicking here!

We had an incredibly close book vote in December, with just 0.34% difference between the winning option and second place. December's book vote looked at our Campaign series, and received a great response from all of you. However, in first place with 25.56% of the vote was Ia Drang 1965. This was followed by Kokoda 1942 with the very respectable 25.22%. See below the full results, and thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.