I came across this book having read several of author Thomason's Naval Fighters books. I was so impressed I did an Amazon search for other books he might have authored. I am now even more impressed. Thomason does for naval fighters what Norman Friedman has been doing for navy ships for three decades.

This book is very adequately described by its subtitle - "Development of Shipborne Jet Fighters 1943-1962". The dates correspond to the contract for the Navy's first jet fighter, the McDonnell XFD-1 Phantom to the first deployment of the McDonnell F4H-1 (later F-4B) Phantom II.

Jet propulsion was what a later generation would describe as a paradigm shift. Virtually overnight the Navy found itself having to learn once again how to operate increasingly sophisticated aircraft at sea. The innovations were coming thick and fast - jet engines, tricycle landing gear, ejection seats, cockpit pressurization, swept wings, guided missiles, etc. Thomason aptly quotes the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland - "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". Thomason superbly describes the technical, strategic, tactical, industrial, and political contexts under which fighter development took place in this period.

Faults are very few and one really has to dig deep to find something to complain about. I came up with no coverage of the XFY-1 and XFV-1 tail sitters but no doubt they were excluded on the grounds of being turboprops, not jets. Still, the Ryan FR and Curtiss XF15C were mentioned (and dismissed) so a paragraph or two would have been nice for completeness sake.

But that is really reaching for something to criticize. This is a superb book in every respect; it is well written, well illustrated, and well organized. Very highly recommended.

My opinion of this work improves upon every re-reading. It is a truly superb history of U.S. Navy fighters during the period of the early jets.

Furthermore, it is a good read not only for the student of Naval aviation or jet fighters, but also for the reader who does not have much background on the subject.

I own (gulp!) hundreds of books on the subject of Navy air and consider this book by Thomason the best of that considerable library.

This is probably the best book out there covering the beginning of the US Navy's jet age and all of the changes and transformations that it required.

Happiness is getting this book for your anniversary. Honestly, I loved this book. It gives you your money's worth. Example, this book not only gives you a run down on every major jet fighter produced from 1943 until 1962, but it gives additional information on carriers, landing development, and weapons systems.

I was pleased with how the book starts with the F1H Phamtom's story and concludes it with the development of the F4H Phantom II (F4B). Also, this book gave an honest history of the much maligned F3N-3 Demon. The J-71 was not a great engine. Indeed, it would have been interesting to see how the F3 Demon would have developed had it been given the much more dependable J-57. But after the Wright engine fiasco the McDonnell engineers came up with a very good all weather fighter. Indeed, the book says that the F3 Demon went on over 57 deployments with the Navy and gave good service from 1957 until 1962. That is over five years of service and many hundreds of flights from a carrier. Indeed, when a person looks at the F3N it's fairly clear that in the modern USN the aircraft would have been given a new engine (the J-57) and an avionics upgrade. The F3N could have served as long as the F4N. But the point is the F4N was a jet in a class by itself and the only reason it was phased from service in the mid-1990s was because of cold war draw downs. That is amazing for a design started in mid-1950s.

I liked all of the chapters of the book. What was weird is reading how Grumman really blew it with the F10F Jaguar. That jet and the Westinghouse engine debacle nearly killed the company. Grumman first get design, the F9F Panther, was not as good as the better McDonnell F2N Banshee. Indeed, the book gives a proposed swept wing F2N-5 design that McDonnell proposes but by that time they were far along on the design on the F3N Demon, an advanced design by any standard. The F9F is a tubby design and is a full 60 miles per hour slower than the F2N. Grumman comes out with the modified F9F-6/8 by the mid-1950s. McDonnell is getting the may kinks out of the Demon but the fact is McDonnell is one generation ahead of Grumman at this point. Then in the late 1950s Grumman produces the F11F, a good fighter but not as good as the F8U Crusader. And by this point it's hopeless because the F11F is in a design fly off against the McDonnell F4N and that jet is in a class by itself. Then the author runs quotes of a Grumman engineer bad mouthing the F2 Fury saying it's not as good on station as the Cougar. Well, the Furys were holding the line against a MiG threat when Grumman was trying to get the lead out of their designs.

Vought had as many problems with their designs as the rest. They made the mild failure, the F6U Pirate, a get with half the thrust of the F2N. Then Vought made the dreadful F7U Cutlass, perhaps one of the worst operational jets in the USN. Vought did a great job with the F8U Crusader, one of the best "gunfighter" jets ever made by any nation.

All in all I found this book from Amazon to be quite enjoyable. I got my money's worth. Now, I have one quibble with the book: there was no break down on jet engines nor much information. That was not a big deal for me because I used to work on F-4C, F-4E, F-100, and the F-105 aircraft. So, I know the engines (J-79, J-57, and J-75 respectively). But if you're an aircraft buff that means you'll be scratching your head on keeping all the engines correct. There is one saying in this book that's true, "You can fly a Pratt & Whitney farther than you can ship an Allison". That goes for Westinghouse.

This book is great and I now remember why I used to love aircraft when a kid.

An outstanding review of post-WWII US Navy fighters. This is a fairly technical book, discussing not just the history of the aircraft but also giving a good view of US jet engine development during the forties and fifties, aircraft systems and an interesting take of how successful each type was based on numbers of squadrons and number of deployments made.

This is a very interesting, complete and nicely illustrated review of US Navy carrier aviation from post WWII to Vietnam conflict.
In my opinion the best way to understand how US Naval aviation transitionned from post war interrogations to angled fly deck with F8 Crusader and F4 Phantom.
A must have for Naval aviation enthousiasts.

An excellent overview history of the development of early Naval Jet Aircraft. Informative and Well illustrated.

This is an excellent must read book for anyone interested in the Navy's jet fighter development from its start thru about 1960. The book is not about statistics as Mr. Thomason says. The book is describing an era and pretty much all that it encompassed for its subject. He goes into detail on how each program came about, how the contracts were awarded, the development of each type to service or cancellation. There is a tremendous amount of information that leads one to understanding of the times and how quickly things were developing. I would not consider the chapters dealing with armament and carrier development with the adoption of the British steam catapult, "canted" deck, and mirror landing system as side trips as each had a direct effect on carrier aircraft design.

There are only three chapters out of fifteen that deal with a specific aircraft and it's understandable that the planes are the F7U, F4D, and F3H as the sum up the problems of defining a mission and manufacturing that the Navy was encountering at the time. The Panthers, Banshees, Cougars, Furies, Tigers, and Crusaders are explained in detail too. One interesting nugget of information concerns the F7U Cutlass. The Cutlass was known for breaking its long nose strut in service and being a hard aircraft to land on a carrier. Mr. Thomason points out the last cruises the Cutlass went on didn't have the accident rate on landing that its reputation making first cruises did. This corresponded to being on carriers with an angled deck so a pilot had a clear deck in front of him and with no need to slam down on the deck to land. Besides its Westinghouse engines the plane was a victim of timing. The book is filled with uncommon information like that. The only things that I noticed that seemed missed were the J79 in connection with the F5D and the development of the Sidewinder 1C beam rider that helped the F8U-2NE play interceptor to replace the F3H on the Essex-class carriers. My impression based on the rest of the book is that it was most likely there but edited out to get the page count right.

This is an impressive book using some of the best resources on the subject such as George Spangenberg. The last naval aviation book that read where I thought the author really described the subject really well was Michael O'Connor's"Mig Killers of Yankee Station" this book is similarly as detailed in its subject. Mr. Thomason you've written the "A Number 1" book on Navy fighter development 1943-1962, thank you.

This book is certainly much more than I expected. I would have been happy with a few color photos covering the jets of the fifties and sixties. .Looking through some of the many photos I did discover a few from other older books in my library, but they were few and far between and didn't distract from the work. The interesting thing about the book is the many different chapters the book goes over. It's not just chapter after chapter following one plane after another, but takes side trips to the whys and wherefores of some of the development and needs of the navy. One chapter covers the changing development of the carriers for example. I was disappointed to find no chapter covering the Grumman Cougar / Panthers. They were talked about in many of the other areas however. At any rate a beautiful work all the way up to the Phantom II. This isn't something you'll read through to fast. The ten by ten format is also nice.