Aircraft Today

Aircraft Today is a book written by John W. R. Taylor in 1950. It is about aircraft design and covers a wide range of aviation topics ranging from civil transports to rockets. The book contains monochrome photographs of aeroplanes, specification tables, and their descriptions.

Designed for enthusiasts and spotters, it contains basic information of many planes of the 50s. There is a page on the SBAC identification system that spotters might find interesting. It has a chapter devoted to engines showing the operation of the gas turbine cycle, and the by-pass engine cycle. There is also a nice chapter on helicopter flight principles.

John W. R. Taylor

John W. R. Taylor was an expert in matters relating to aircraft technology of that time. He has written a whole series of books on the subject and was the chief editor of Jane's All the World's Aircraft between 1960 to 1989. His expertise was mainly in deducing the performance of Soviet military aircraft simply from looking at photographs. He was educated at Soham Grammar School near Cambridge, and he became a Draughtsman before joining Hawker Aircraft in 1941.

He died in December 1999 at the age of 77. He was Christian, married to Doris, and had two children.

The contributors for this book were Maurice F. Allward, Raoul Hafner, Lt. CDR. M. J. Lithgow, and Patricia Stroud.

Back Cover

The book is 7-inch × 5-inch in size and contains approximately 72 pages of fully illustrated art paper. Here is a small extract from the cover.

Aviation today is a front-page topic. It affects everyone in some way, the traveller by its speed, the politician by its menace, the scientist by its possibilities, and the person living near it by its airport noise. Yet many of us have a very limited idea of what is going on in the world of aviation.

In this book, the editor has brought together 16 leading authorities on the subject to give you the inside story of what goes on in the air. It covers every aspect; from commercial flying to high-speed testing, from gliding and model aviation to rocket ships and flying saucers.

Specification