The World's Worst Aircraft

New York: Dorset Press, 1991. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Format is approximately 9.25 inches by 12.25 inches. 159, [1] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Index. DJ has some wear and soiling. Bill Yenne is the author of more than three dozen non-fiction books, as well as ten novels. His work has been selected for Chief of Staff of the Air Force Reading List. He is the recipient of the Air Force Association's Gill Robb Wilson Award for the "most outstanding contribution in the field of arts and letters [as an] author whose works have shaped how thousands of Americans understand and appreciate airpower." Mr. Yenne has contributed to encyclopedias of both world wars, and his work has been translated into five languages. He has appeared in documentaries airing on the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, C-SPAN and ARD German Television. Mr. Yenne has written histories of America's great aircraft makers, including Convair, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas, and has been praised for his recently-updated The Story of the Boeing Company. He is a graduate of the University of Montana and the Stanford University Professional Publishing Course, and is the founder of American Graphic Systems, whose AGS BookWorks division is the producer of nearly 200 large-format, illustrated books. Before turning to a career as an author, Mr. Yenne was a nationally recognized artist and illustrator. The subjects of this book are not the greats, nor the near greats, of aviation's history. They are the black sheep that have embarrassed their builders, enraged their owners and frightened their pilots. In many cases, these are aircraft that never should have been built and which are more starkly bizarre than the most deranged flights of fantasy. This book of "black sheep'' includes some of the worst and most dangerous contrivances ever perpetrated, such as Count Caproni's Transaereo, which was really nothing more than three huge triplanes nailed to a houseboat. Then there's the worthless Brewster F2ABuffalo, the asymmetrical Blohm & Voss Bv-141, the "disposable'' Bachem Ba-349, and the infamous Yokosuka MXY7--the only airplane ever designed to kill its own pilot--just to name a few. Hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs throughout.