Bell HSL ASW Helicopter (Naval Fighters, 70) Paperback – November 1, 2006

General info

Accurate description arrived in a timely manner in excellent condition at a reasonable price.

This book is typical of the series, but provides more coverage than usual. It is a nice booklet, which can be found at a reasonable price, and covers this interesting helicopter in great depth.

Not a big market for this sort of thing so I was happy to find it.

A very useful book, that fills in a gap in my historical knowledge.

Even among aviation historians, the Bell HSL is largely unknown. A standard reference work on U.S. Navy aircraft gives it just half a page, including a photo.Thomason corrects that with this book. By outling the requirements, design and production details plus a history on each aircraft produced you'll see how the HSL turned from a promising contender into a "also ran" in the space of five years.An aeronautical engineer by training, Thomason also goes into the unique technical aspects of tandem-rotor helicopters, something very much appreciated because of their significant difference from the more common single-rotor types. I also really apprciated a first-hand pilot report by Bell test pilot, author and helicopter historian, Ned Gilliand who had the opportunity to test one while serving in the Army.Most importantly the book answeres the question..."Was the HSL a bad aircraft?"The answer is no, Bell producede a fine flying ship but it was late and suffered performance penalties because of its large piston engine. The avionics seemed to work well, but overall it failed to reach operational use in largely beacuse of the arrival of the Sikorsky HSS/H-34/S-58 series, which could do the job better with an airframe that could be adapted to other uses as well, giving the Navy and Marines economy of scale for its helicopter fleet.If you're a serious student of naval avaition or the American helicopter history, you'll enjoy this book.Through Amazon, it's certainly not expensive so give it a try.I gurantee you'll learn a few things.

"The Forgotten Bell HSL" includes more than 100 black and white photos, in addition to the rare color photos printed on the front and rear covers. The 88 pages also include more than 30 drawings and illustrations (most from flight or maintenance manuals), as well as some of Bell's tandem rotor design studies. Although a few show their pixels - including one illegible line drawing - most are crisp and highly illustrative. In fact, the collection of rare photographs is eye-watering and worth the price of the book alone; luckily, the rich text covering the trials and tribulations of this unique aircraft is also well-researched and very readable.Other bonuses included in the book are a summary of each of the 50 HSL aircraft (including completion, delivery and destruction dates, as well as total number of flight hours), a comparison to the Grumman Guardian (the fixed-wing competitor for the HSL mission), a test pilot's recollection of the HSL by Ned Gillian, and reviews and examples of two HSL plastic model kits: the 1950s Saunders-Swadar kit and the just-released Anigrand kit.Although no table of contents, index or timeline are provided, and a few typos and layout problems mar what is otherwise a superior book, vertical flight historians could only wish that there was an authoritative source like "The Forgotten Bell HSL" written on every helicopter type ever produced.

このシリーズは模型制作の良い資料になります。(oﾟ▽ﾟ)o