"Allied Rotorcraft of the WW2 Period" by Ryszard Witkowski

[vikingBerserker]

Allied Rotorcraft of the WW2 Period"
by Ryszard Witkowski
Mushroom Model Publications - 2010
ISBN: 978-83-89450-97-5

Allied Rotorcraft.jpg

A lot of been written about German Rotorcraft development in WW2, but not a lot is said about those of the Allies. Well, I've found a book that did just that.



The book is 128 Pages long and is divided into 5 Chapters:

1 - What is the use of it?
2 - USA
3 - Britain
4 - USSR
5 - France

This book is packed with tons of photos from the time period as well as 23 pages of color photos of surviving examples around the world covering helicopters as well as autogiros. Germany's Fw-61 with its rotor layout heavily influenced early designs of the Allies, some examples:

XR-1 - USA
platt-xr1a.jpg
History of Army Helicopters

Weir w.6 - British
weir w6.jpg
Wier W6

Omega - Russian
2MG-Omega.gif
The Helicopter as a Combat Platform » Indian Defence Review

The book goes through the designs that were considered as well as a few "odd" ones such as the "Rotabuggy" (a Willy's Jeep converted into a rotorcraft) and the "Rotachute" (an unpowered rotoglider for a single person to be towed behind an aircraft). It also mentions work on a "Rototank" which was designed to deliver a 16 ton Valentine tank - oddly enough they could not get it to work.

I found it interesting how heavily Polish and Russian immigrants influenced the designs in the West.

A nice little book at a reasonable price, I give it 9 Stars.