AIRCRAFT OF THE FIGHTING POWERS, Volume 5

PREFACE

With each successive year " Aircraft of the Fighting Powers " becomes more established as the standard series of reference books on military aircraft used by all nations in Great War No. 2 ; and notwithstanding all the handicaps arising from wartime conditions, the Editor and Compilers venture to feel that this latest volume will at least maintain the level attained by previous ones.

It is not usually realised that, whilst each volume of " Aircraft of the Fighting Powers " is complete in itself - in that it deals with aircraft flown in a particular year - each bears a definite relationship to its predecessor.

In this, " Aircraft of the Fighting Powers " differs from all other Annuals, most of which, when a newer edition is published, must be cast on one side as out of date.

Not so this series of volumes, each of which must be used in conjunction with the others if a complete record is to be kept of all the military aircraft used in the present war. Thus the whole series of volumes, from No. I onwards, provides a chronological record of the development and use of military aircraft throughout the years of this Second Great War of the Twentieth Century.

Unlike other Annuals, in which varying amounts of space are devoted to aircraft, " Aircraft of the Fighting Powers ", in the case of every aircraft, provides a I / 72 three - view scale drawing, together with specification, development, armament, power plant, all known performance figures and weights, and operational history.

Thus, in each volume is provided information essential to members of the Royal Air Force, Royal Observer Corps, Air Training Corps, A.A. Gun Units, and that vast public to whom " Aircraft Recognition " is now an important item in their general education.

( ... ) Months of research and preparation by a highly skilled staff are required to produce each volume, and on behalf of the Publishers the opportunity is here taken to acknowledge gratefully the advertising support from many leading firms in the Aircraft Industry, without which each volume would cost appreciably more. ( ... )

December, 1943.

D.A. RUSSELL.