V-Force: Britain’s Nuclear Bombers and the Cold War & Shaping the Vulcan
You and I are jaded aviation readers. We have read a hundred books on the Spitfire and have tattoos of Bill Gunston on our left calf and John W R Taylor onour tanned six packs. We know thatwith aviation books, the sauces are more important than the carbs. The carbs in a Spitfire book must tell us it was a legend and won the war, that the engine sounded nice, etc. This part is a given; it is the sauce and seasoning that matter. To put it another way, it is where the author strays off the main path that things get interesting. So a Vulcan book must deliver the carbs: the Vulcan is iconic, delta-winged and thunderous, first flew however many years after the Lancaster, etc., and it must talk about the Cold War, but what’s the sauce? What’s in the luscious creamy sauce? Two V-bomber books are out (or about to be out), and they take two significantly different approaches in a way that makes them pleasantly complementary.
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Shaping the Vulcan by Stephen Liddle.
Let’s start with Shaping the Vulcan by Stephen Liddle. Stephen wrote an analysis of the B-21 Raider for Hush-Kit, and it was brilliant. His background in engineering and aerodynamics shone through, but unusually for someone with a brilliant engineer’s brain, he can speak human. In explaining aspects of an aircraft’s design in minute detail, there is no fudging or hiding behind fancy words; he will find out why a design decision was made and let you know, in a way you can understand. Want to know precisely why the Vulcan’s intake is the way it is, and what all those funny sticky-out bits do? Stephen will lead you through without hurting your head, the result of clearly brilliant detective work and an excellent understanding of the subject. The backstories and individuals are fascinating – find out who ‘accidentally’ designed the exact modern UCAV form in the 1940s (not Horton or Northrop), and other remarkable tales. There’s a lovely chapter on that crime against aerodynamics, the Gloster Javelin, and the batshit plans to unshitify it. Full of fabulous original diagrams and blueprints, including a gloriously scrappy Roy Chadwick pen sketch. This is a fabulous book, and highly recommended.
Link here
Right to V-Force: Britain’s Nuclear Bombers and the Cold War by Jonathan Glancey.
For Garage Rock bands from the 1960s onwards, covering the song ‘Louie Louie’ was how you showed your colours. The audience’s familiarity with the song meant that bands could use it to show off their own style and artistic sensibilities; the Swamp Rats tore it to pieces in 1966, replaced artistry with furious attitude, and invented Punk Rock.
Iggy Pop turned it into a wild treatise at the end of the Cold War, which managed to namecheck Dostoevsky and capture the zeitgeist. A Spitfire book is the ‘Louie Louie’ for aviation writers, with such audience familiarity with the subject: what can authors bring? Glancey did the impossible with Spitfire: The Biography (2007) – he made the subject fresh and pacy. His highbrow background as an architectural critic and writer (with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford) did not make this book elitist; it was totally accessible, well written and utterly enjoyable. His new V-Force book is a pacy, exhilarating paean to three wonders of British post-war aviation. With Glancey’s usual masterly ability to sniff out the best part of a story, V-Force is a thrilling read. While celebrating engineering prowess, it doesn’t duck away from the dark insanity of nuclear testing and warfare, the human story or the V-Force’s many tendrils reaching into popular culture. A must-have for the aviation fan, general history reader or anyone who has ever got a little turned hearing a howling Vulcan bomber! Gripping, witty and well-informed, a thunderous read!
Link here.
