Comparison: Squadron Signal F-14 Tomcat "in action" books

Squadron Signal's F-14 Tomcat in action books

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat didn't need a movie to make it one of the most beloved aircraft in US Navy history. Anyone that likes aviation could fall in love with its looks. It featured a rakish profile, often accompanied by colorful squadron plumage on the twin vertical tails.

Squadron Signal Publications liked the jet enough to make five books (to date) about it in the "in action" series. We'll take a quick look at these books with collector's notes on which ones best fit your needs.

1977 - Starting in Afterburner 

The story of these books starts in 1977 with book 1032, F-14 Tomcat in action. It's a beautiful debut for the Tomcats in this line, with a sparkling clean Tomcat of the VF-84 Jolly Rogers squadron, set against a blue sky and launching an AIM-54 Phoenix missile. 

This was the perfect squadron to start with. The Jolly Rogers have an illustrious history. They also have one of the most photogenic squadron emblems in the skull and crossbones. Besides going back to WWII, the squadron's birds also featured in several movies (The Final Countdown, The Philadelphia Experiment, Executive Decision). This was also the motif used in the Japanese animation series Macross (converted to Robotech in the United States), proving the universal nature of the appeal. Although VF-84 was disestablished in 1995, the navy kept the iconic skull and crossbones alive, transferring the logo and name to VFA-103, formerly known as the Sluggers.

Lou Drendel authored and illustrated the first F-14 Tomcat in action book. I'll cut right to it: the book is highly recommended. Yes, even with the books that would follow, Drendel's 1977 entry is the most unique of the bunch and a stellar example of how good the early "in action" books could be before they started to favor graphics over text. 

Drendel starts at the beginning in the book's introduction, touching briefly on the navy's realization that the F-111B was not going to work for them, and then heads into the first chapter to cover flight testing of the then new Tomcat. This chapter is fantastic and captures the words of LCDR Emory Brown. I can't speak for all aviation fans but listening to pilot testimonials is one of my favorite aviation-related activities. Brown goes for several pages, with great photos of early Tomcat test flights. There are also some technical drawings of things like the Tomcat's hard points and onboard cannon. One picture is of General Daniel "Chappie" James after an orientation flight in the Tomcat (James is featured a bit in the Robin Olds biography, Fighter Pilot, and though he was in the air force at the time, he was commander of NORAD later in his career, explaining how he got to ride a navy airplane). 

The next section is a joy to read too. Drendel puts in a page on the Tomcat vs Phantom air combat trials, and that stuff, though short, is candy for military aviation fans. The next few pages include nice cutaway drawings, yet again very cool stuff absent from the later Tomcat "in action" books. 

Following that is a mini-walkaround photo page, then diagrams of the pilot and NFO (naval flight officer, the radar operator in the back seat) instrument panels, an ejection sequence diagram, and ordnance configuration diagrams. 

Early "in action" books were printed in black and white, with a centerfold color insert featuring profiles of the subject aircraft in different insignia. The 1977 book has the color insert but it is split between squadron profiles and some color photos. 

Next briefly covers the Tomcat's introduction to the fleet, followed by featuring many photos of the F-14 in carrier operations. 

The next section is just awesome, as Drendel details his experience in a check flight in the back seat of a Tomcat. Several photos accompany this section and also fill out the last few pages of the book before readers are treated to another pair of great Drendel Tomcat paintings on the back cover.

Don't be put off by the vintage status of the 1977 book. For an aviation enthusiast, it might be the best one of the bunch. Drendel did a lot of research and work for this one and it shows.

1990 - New Update, New Author

Book 1105 F-14 Tomcat in action came out thirteen years after Drendel's book and also after the Tomcat had appeared in several movies, including one about the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar, California...the name of the movie escapes me, but rumor is it was popular. 

The names behind this book are different. The author, Al Adcock, has written other Squadron books about naval aviation, so that's not a surprise. This time around, the artist is Don Greer. Greer and Drendel were the two heavy hitter artists for most of Squadron's history prior to 2022. 

Adcock had more than a decade's worth of material to work through in building this second "in action" Tomcat book. The introduction is new, written in a more professional style than Drendel's folksy narration, and is a bit more detailed in describing the history of the F-14's creation.

The course of the book follows the standard "in action" practice of stepping through each version of an aircraft's variants in chronological order. I'm happy to report that Adcock's book still features a good blend of photos and lots of text. The F-14A gets many pages of the jet flying or on carriers, interspersed with detail diagrams featuring things like ordnance, refueling probe, cannon, the Tomcat's chin electronics pods.

The color centerfold features just squadron jets in profile. 

The next section is more meaty material for military history fans, covering the Tomcat's combat record at the time. This is primarily the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. 

Adcock then dedicates a couple pages to the export of Tomcats to Iran before covering the F-14B and F-14C and advanced experimental variants, along with material on the NASA F-14 and finally the F-14D.

Both the 1977 and 1990 editions are fifty pages.

2007 - Drendel and Greer team-up Issue

Book 1206 F-14 Tomcat in action would appear seventeen years after Adcock's entry, and shortly after the retirement of the F-14 by the US Navy on 22-Sep-2006. Lou Drendel returned as the author. Interestingly, Don Greer provides the painted cover and Drendel the title page. Mike McMahon, the publisher at the time, wrote of the two long-tenured Squadron contributors in the front notes, explaining that with the F-14's retirement, he felt Greer's use of a Tomcat with a sunset made for an appropriate cover. The winner is the reader, who gets yet two more great paintings from these Squadron stalwarts.

This book is also what McMahon called the debut of the All Color In Action series, where the photos in the book are mostly color. 

In addition to an introduction page, this book also has an author's foreword page. Drendel acknowledges the 1977 book and reviews how the Tomcat has seen changes and fame since then, and how the end of the Soviet Union took away the adversary the Tomcat was made to intercept, how the Tomcat found new life as a strike aircraft, and when it made its final catapult launch. His love for the plane is clear.

The formal introduction that follows is similar to the 1977 book's introduction, though Drendel reworked it with a more formal style. 

The F-14A starts the usual survey of the plane's variants. While there is some overlap in the general material, the text here reads very differently than Adcock's F-14A introduction page. Drendel also includes more details on the various manufacturing blocks of the Tomcat and adds a list of BuNos for each block. 

The color photos are great, and like the 1977 edition, this book includes diagrams of the instrument panels for both pilot and RIO (radar intercept officer). But this edition's color, larger pictures, and larger print all work to make these parts more readable than the original. This is a nice improvement.

Drendel continues to track the Tomcat variants and BuNo ranges for each. The pictures and paintings are an awesome sight and a real treat for Tomcat fans. The book ends with sections on Tomcat weapons and the Tomcat as a bombing platform. The final page shows Tomcats being dismantled at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the famous airplane graveyard. Drendel provides two paintings on the back cover. 

On one hand, it's sad to not see some inclusion of the material from LCDR Emory Brown's testing and Drendel's recollections of his Tomcat ride, but on the other, there's minimal duplication of content between the 1977 and 2007 books. 

Book 1206 weighs in at fifty-two pages.

2018 - David Doyle and the Coffee Table Book Format

Book 10206 F-14 Tomcat In Action would appear eleven years after book 1206. The book numbering, 10206 versus 1206, seemed to be a quasi-standard Squadron was using to number books that were updates to previous books on the same aircraft.  

The good: 

• Most of the photos are in color and Squadron bumped up the page count to eighty.
• Doyle packs in a lot of photos, and from Squadron TV I've learned he takes great effort to not reuse photos from previous books. There are some great pictures here, including one of a Tomcat still flying after receiving collision damage.

The not as good:

• This is one of the books where the entire book is mostly photos and captions. Still great stuff, but you're not going to get that great detail from pilot interviews. The photo captions are still good and can add useful detail.
• No Drendel or Greer artwork. Both covers and all interior graphics are photos or diagrams. 

I joke about "coffee table book format" but of course I still love the books, it's just different and I kind of get how Doyle simply couldn't be as prolific if the books were in the old format. It would take much longer to get all that data, in addition to scouring over all the photos and curating to avoid duplication.

Book 10206 clocks in at eighty pages.

 

2022 - A little later, a little Update

Book 10267 F-14 Tomcat In Action didn't wait long after the last book to show up, just four years this time. These four years were tumultuous for Squadron as it went through period of near dormancy, the pandemic, and ownership changes. 10267's numbering also is odd, as it is an update to 10206 with an additional eight pages.

I've mixed opinions on this one but the first impression is a good one, with a new artist's work gracing the cover. Now under the ownership of Brandon Lowe, Squadron is getting great digital art made by Piotr Forkasiewicz. There's an episode of Squadron TV  featuring Forkasiewicz [YouTube] where Forkasiewicz tells his story and gives a glimpse into his art process. Although the digital art can reduce some of the inefficiencies of traditional art (it's a lot cleaner not having to clean up paints, and 3D models make creating reproductions and variations much easier) it's still a ton of work.

It's interesting to note too that the indicia shows the copyright goes to David Doyle instead of Squadron. I've said in an earlier post what a smart move by Doyle that is. Traditionally the publisher gets everything and the writer gets very little in the contract rights (unless you were willing to fight for it like the scrappy Harlan Ellison, but for most of us that would mean not getting published). Not sure though if this was just a one-off special case due to the Squadron ownership changes. 

Outside of the cover, title page, and indicia page, book 10267 is identical to book 10206 through the first forty-five pages. In 10267, page 45 features the photo that was book 10206's cover. Although the picture is a lovely shot of a Tomcat with wings forward over the water, I like 10206's page 45 featuring three photos of Tomcats in service (a pair of Tomcats on a carrier deck, an F-14 catapult launch, and a Tomcat in profile in flight in low-visibility paint). 

The books re-sync for pages 46 through 62. 

Then on page 63 there's some weirdness. Both books sport a four-picture quadrant spread, and both have the same pictures in the top two quadrants. Book 10206 does something really cool; it shows in the bottom pictures Tomcats of the VF-41 "Black Aces" in a refueling op. The bottom left Tomcat is in low visibility paint, the bottom right picture shows a Tomcat with the brighter colors and red in the squadron tail markings. Both photos are from 1991, the left Tomcat is number 104, and the right is number 101. There's a story to be told here, but Doyle doesn't tell it! Why during the same time frame are these two Tomcats painted differently? Is 101 a CAG bird, which were sometimes allowed more colorful schemes? Was 104 more actively involved in combat operations and why it had the more subdued colors?

And it gets weirder. Even without the story behind the two VF-41 birds, the two photos in 10206 are an interesting contrast, enough to spark the questions I ask above. Book 10267 has the same low vis Tomcat picture in the lower left, but swaps out the lower right for a VF-1 plane preparing for a cat launch. Why did Doyle make this change? I'll have to ask someday in a Squadron TV episode. Boy what a nerd I'll look like in that show: "Uh, Mr. Doyle, why on page 63 of book 10267 was the quadrant four picture changed?" Yeah, absolute SNL "get a life" skit fodder.

Page 64 is identical in both books.

Page 65 is a win for book 10206, which features the aforementioned shot of a damaged Tomcat still flying. Book 10267 at this point starts some squadron color profile drawings. While I like the profiles, book 10206's picture is incredible and absent from 10267.

Page 66: Book 10206 has a full page for the same photo that was the curious replacement in the bottom right corner of book 10267's page 63. Despite being smaller in book 10267, the photo color looks better as book 10206's rendition seems slightly tinted.

Page 67: Book 10206 has a triple photo layout, book 10267 has the third page of the color profile drawings. But on 10267's page 68, it starts with the vertical half-page photo used on the right half of the previous book's page 67, and then the second half is the same two photos that make up the first half of book 10206's page 68. Book 10267 loses a shot of a Tomcat on a carrier during Operation Southern Watch. 

Pages 69-74 are identical between the books.

Pages 75-77 are hard to compare. There are some of the same photos used in both books but Doyle has re-sequenced several while also dropping a few of 10206's for other operations photos. One change I liked is of the special "final Tomcat cruise" emblems painted on the Tomcat's last tour (this picture is also in book 1206). 

Book 10206 ends at page 80, but both books have the same last three pages, showing the airplane graveyard and a Tomcat at sunset. 

I remain curious as to how Doyle decided what to keep and what to change, but who am I kidding, it's the Tomcat, so all the pictures are going to be good. 

Book 10267 counts in at eighty-eight pages total. 

Conclusions

If you're a Tomcat fan and can't get enough photos of the Tomcat, you'll love all of these books. And of course, if you're a completist, the advice is the same, get them all because each has something different.

If you're looking to save money and space, I would omit 10206 for 10267. If you're mostly looking for photos, I think 10267 is your top choice for the best selection of color photos, although book 10206 does have a closeup of landing gear and the damaged flight picture, photos dropped for 10267.

If you're a historian, get 1032, the 1977 book that has all the great information about the early days of the Tomcat, and maybe supplement it with Adcock's 1105 to capture some of the operational history.

If you need modeling reference photos for later variants like the F-14D, you'll have to start with Adcock's 1105 or later.

If you can buy only one? Tough call, but I would contend that the first book, 1032, is one of the best in terms of educational value and useful material. None of the other books comes close to providing the same insights into flying the Tomcat. 

Book 1206 is sort of an oddball in the mix. I like it as a sort of farewell to the Tomcat, and as a nice sequel to Drendel's original book 1032. But it doesn't have the original's storytelling, and the subsequent books would have more photos. However, it does have more of those wonderful Drendel paintings. Still a worthy acquisition for Squadron collectors.

If all the above isn't enough, Squadron published yet more Tomcat books. 

• Book 5006 is part of the short Modern Military Aircraft series. It's a trade paperback dedicated to the F-14.
• Book 5503 is the F-14 Tomcat Walk Around, featuring a full photo tour around the aircraft
• Book 6092 is part of the Squadron specials line and another dedicated study of the F-14. How it differs from 5506 is something for a future post.

Old reviews: Windtalkers review

Towards the end of my time writing for Combatsim.com I got to do several movie reviews, some of which have already been posted. 

Windtalkers was ok. I certainly appreciate the effort to give some pub to some unsung heroes of WWII. We'll see if Hollywood eventually gets to the Japanese Americans that fought in Europe for the allies. 

Rereading this, I am struck by the paragraph where I suggested that racism could be better illustrated in a more subtle manner, with social ostracization rather than a silly fistfight. It's a terrible and wonderful statement at the same time, born from personal experience.

Windtalkers

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Movie Review
Article Date: July 04, 2002

Woo Hoo!
Hollywood's interest in WWII continues with the new Windtalkers, an interesting film for a couple reasons. The first is that is addresses a little known aspect of the American effort in the war, and the other is that its director is John Woo, the Chinese action maven. The patriotism and racial implications of the film might worry some; does the film sacrifice truth for political correctness? Woo's presence is also point of ambivalence. Is the film's action too choreographed for belief? The final product is shaky, but the thrust of its politically correct message remembers minority veterans and is worth noting.

Nicholas Cage gets his orders

The film is fiction, but based on the true contribution of Native Americans to the Allied cause in WWII. The Japanese were able to intercept American radio transmissions and break the American codes, thus compromising useful information. Someone came up with the ingenious idea of communicating in an obscure language that would be difficult to interpret. The Navajo language answered the call. Native Americans fluent in Navajo found work as interpreters and served as "windtalkers", or code talkers.

Everybody has Secrets
The American military assigned Marine bodyguards to the code talkers, and this forms the center of the film. Nicolas Cage steps in to play Sergeant Joe Enders, the Marine responsible for the protection of code talker Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach). Christian Slater plays a Marine, Sgt. Ox Henderson, assigned to Pvt. Charles Whitehorse (real Navajo Roger Willie). The film makes much of the supposed directive that these Marine guards were told to protect the code at all costs, even if it means killing a code talker to prevent his capture by the Japanese. This proves an interesting angst vehicle for Enders and Henderson, who naturally grow close to their charges and wonder if they could do the deed.

Woo is familiar with the dynamics of a relationship between men that have dangerous secrets. Face/Off, also starring Cage, is one place where he observed them, though the two main characters in that film experience a more intimate exchange of lives. In Windtalkers, Woo seems to step back a bit to capture a larger picture, attempting to generically capture the code talker experience of WWII. For example, the Native Americans suffer from some racism, and it's noted that they look a little like the Japanese. Yahzee in fact impersonates a Japanese soldier in one of the more incredulous moments of the film. But even if there was antipathy on the part of Caucasian troops to the Native Americans, the manner in which Woo illustrates it is disappointing. Woo resorts to a cliché, the old-fashioned fistfight, and from only one dopey soldier, the same one used for comic relief throughout the film. The pain of racism is sharpest and most insidious when understated. Imagine instead if the code talkers had been the victims of almost unseen stares, perpetual exclusion from social acceptance, or at the edge of whispers behind their backs?

Impressive cinematography

War Movie 101
The script is in fact full of clichés and war movie conventions. It's almost as if the creators were making a war movie for the first time and relied on existing material for source matter. Windtalkers introduces other characters in the platoon to try to give it the team atmosphere of other films, but they're only briefly developed and add little to the picture. There's the married guy that tries to give his ring to a buddy to "send back home if something happens." There's the guy, mentioned above, that doesn't like Native Americans, but who must learn to change because his life is saved by one. There's the nurse that takes a liking to Enders despite his haunted countenance.

Cage's Enders is probably the only character in the film that isn't a total cliché. Enders suffers a painful combat experience early in the film, and Cage really does play him as a tormented soul. There is little room for happiness in this character, and I found this performance refreshing if somber, free of many Cage quirks (like the sudden angry outburst). Cage shows us a man progressively developing a death wish. When the nurse (Frances O'connor) writes to him, he initially accepts the letters but never writes back. Later he stops reading them, and his sullen, hollow eyes tell it all as he simply turns away from the mail carrier without even taking the letter.

Beach's Yahzee is on the other hand too even. Little seems to phase him and he is almost emotionless until late in the film. He's portraying the Navajo as a quiet "good guy" but Willie's Charlie Whitehorse proves more believable in the role. The Navajo are supposed to be the focus of the film, and they should play more interesting and complex roles, but Windtalkers becomes more the story of Joe Enders.

A Navajo code talker

Uh Oh, Realism Check
Woo, known for kinetic poetry rather than subtlety or plot creativity, certainly delivers action. What is strange is that Woo departs from his staples. There are no slow motion blood ballets, which is surprising, given how many action films copy techniques seen in his films. And although there are plenty of flying bodies, it's because they are being thrown from an explosion rather than defying gravity for silly things like flying kicks. Woo usually likes to throw some big shotguns into his movies, but that isn't the case here, though I thought I did see one in one scene. In some senses, the action is a little more realistic than the usual Woo film would have it. The soldiers don't take twenty bullets to kill, and there aren't any thirty minute long martial arts standoffs. It's good to see the soldiers have the appropriate WWII uniforms, helmets, and weapons. The panoramic views of the Marines storming a beach, with ships throwing out bombardment support and F6F Hellcats providing air support (if flying a bit low…), are nice to see. But there are still problems.

Enders is a little too good with the Thompson sub-machinegun. He takes down half the Japanese army with the thing. The Japanese soldiers aren't given much credit either. Marine veterans have many times expressed their respect for the tenacity of the Japanese fighters. But in Windtalkers the Japanese soldiers, while smart enough to camouflage their gun emplacements, tend to rush right into American fire, like the mindless enemies in a first-person shooter arcade game. The film does, however, represent that there was much close combat with bayonets. There's also a gunnery sergeant's (Peter Stormare) French or Swedish accent; maybe not inconceivable, but it seemed out of place in the US Marines. That's balanced somewhat by English actor Jason Isaacs (Black Hawk Down) who again does a decent job putting on an American accent.

It was all a Dream
The one inaccuracy that stings most is that the role of the code talkers is probably incorrect as the movie portrays it. The code talkers in Windtalkers speak in code several times to relay tactical information. That is, they are in the heat of an infantry battle and use code to relay enemy positions to the battleships off the coast for bombardment. Realistically, the code talkers were probably in more isolated back areas, transmitting strategic level information, such as fleet positions or strike preparation orders. Using code to relay a message that will be obsolete within an hour makes little sense.

The battle heats up on screen

Woo's way, of course, makes the code talkers more immediately heroic. It's ludicrous in retrospect, but at the same time, perhaps we can be thankful he broaches the subject. I'd first heard of the code talkers courtesy of an X-Files episode, but Windtalkers brings them to life more vividly, if unrealistically. The veteran code talkers themselves identify inaccuracies in the movie, but are happy to see some attempt at recognizing their contribution. Just as the Baa Baa Black Sheep television show was more fiction than non-fiction, yet inspired interest in many youths to eventually learn more, perhaps Windtalkers will be a precursor to better things.

Sister Cities

Ever heard the phrase "sister city"? I've always taken that to refer to two cities that are alike even though they're not geographically close (unlike the twin cities in Minnesota).

Living in Houston I've found several cities that could be sister cities to it. There are a couple obvious ones like San Antonio, Dallas, or Corpus Christi, but they are also in Texas. Going out of state, two come to mind from my travels.

Atlanta, Georgia

I went to Atlanta back in the late 1990's for one of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) shows before it moved back to Los Angeles. 

Similarities

• I was immediately struck by the similar sprawl of a green and concrete mix. 
• Downtown surrounded by flat suburbs
• HEAT and HUMIDITY
• Pro football team
• Southern cuisine

Differences

• Public transportation: Houston doesn't have anything like Atlanta's Metra Rail. I used it to get from the airport to downtown and thought it was a great lower cost alternative to a taxi, though the locals I spoke with didn't sound as pleased with it as I was.
• Somewhat different vibe in downtown. I was constantly being approached by cab drivers as opposed to me hailing them. 

I'm sure there's more to write here, but on a short trip that's what I got.  

Calgary, Alberta

Been to Calgary twice. Once back around 2004 or 2005 and again just recently in Nov 2024. Both times I was staying in downtown and really found the city to be like Houston.

Similarities

• Small to moderate sized downtown surrounded by mostly flat suburbs
• Oil and gas business
• Good and often underrated food scene
• Cowboys and rodeos
• Steak
• Cosmopolitan population (both cities have a lot of different cultures, and you can find food of all cuisines)
• Classic sports stadiums (Astrodome and Saddledome)

Differences

• Calgary's downtown is more walkable. You can find all kinds of stores (grocery, books, malls) in walking distance. From my hotel I could get to their small Chinatown (5 minutes), the Saddledome (15 minutes), Prince Park (15 minutes), and pretty much everything on foot.
• Calgary has a tremendous public Central Library. They built it in 2018 and it's wonderful. The architecture is a stark contrast to the boring squares and rectangles that are so typical of modern American and Canadian architecture. But beyond that, the facility is designed as a giant human space. There are books but they almost seem secondary to the library's use as a vessel for community engagement with a coffee shop, numerous meeting rooms and activities, and programs for all ages. Calgary's library kicks Houston's in the ass, hard. The downtown Houston library has become a haven for homeless and my daughter was harassed when she visited. The CCL has security and attendants at the entrance to deal with visitors, of good faith or otherwise. Anyone wanting to call me a 1940's German for that last sentiment can GTFO, you should not have to worry about your safety when visiting an institution of learning (you shouldn't have to worry about it at all in a civilization). Like the High Line in New York, the CCL is a great example of how cities can do it right. I will offer one caveat: I don't know if the CCL as is would work in Houston due to the nature of demographics in Houston's downtown; it might be better in a suburban space where there are more residents.
• Colder winters, duh 
• Not a difference, but when I spoke to Calgarians about the sister city concept, they didn't disagree that Houston was a good match, but a few offered that they consider Denver a closer fit. I can see that, especially given the snow and the mountains within an hour's drive.

Review: Biboraya Dual Mount Trash Bucket Sliding Shelf

I have a sliding drawer in one of my lower kitchen cabinets that conceals a pair of trash tubs. It came with the house when we bought it and it's a nice way to have a wastebasket that's out of view. The two tubs sit in a rack with two holes in it for the trash tubs to hang in, and that rack is affixed with some custom welded tabs that attach it to a pair of otherwise normal-looking drawer slide rails. But those custom tabs are specific to this model of device; you can't just buy a replacement part at a local hardware store because it's not a common standard part.

Now this isn't one of those posts where I bitch about poor craftsmanship. This slide-out tray is actually pretty cool and lasted fourteen years. But one of the drawer slides broke a clip that was holding bearings in place. Bearings fell out and one of the slides became untracked. When I started repair analysis, I decided I didn't want to buy a new fixture that was an exact replacement. I wanted something simpler, more easily found, and more cost effective. 

I found a dual tub sliding shelf on Amazon for about half what an exact replacement would have cost me. It was a simple metal cage that held the two tubs, and was sitting on a set of interlinked sliding bars mounted on the floor of the cabinet rather than on the sides like the old one. That all looked like it would be a much simpler mechanism to install and maintain. 

Amazon did its usual good job of getting it to me in two days. But it didn't take long after that to get frustrated with terrible instructions. This is not a super complicated device and the manufacturer made it about as goofy and confusing as they could have. 

First, you assemble the tub cage by fastening to side rails to the bottom of the cage. That should have been really easy except that the instructions tell you to use a screw, and when you look at the parts, there are only three screws for the step which has four connection points, two on each side, left and right. Why are there only three screws? 

There are another five screws of the same diameter and threading, but about two millimeters shorter than the three identified for the first step. So if you're careful, you can also use one of those to handle the fourth screw point on the cage assembly. The instructions say you can watch an installation video, but the video does a terrible job of explaining the three screws for the four connection points in the first step.

Next is the step where you complete the tub cage by adding two light bars to the top front and top rear of the cage to form the rectangular shape. Already at this point the cage is sort of leaning funny, but these two bars to help correct the form. The back one is super easy to install, it's just a dowel with curved ends that you drop into some holes on the back of the cage and it's held by gravity. But the front bar has two screw holes and you have to use two short screws to affix; the thread tolerances here are not very good and the screws go in with difficulty. However, I finally get it done.

The next step is to affix the tub cage to the sliding rails. That's not too hard, and you use the leftover screws from step one. They do work even if a little on the short side.  

The next step is tricky. It is time to install the cage and rail assembly into the cabinet, and to affix mounting brackets to the door. This isn't difficult but requires some precision because if the cage or the door brackets are installed out of alignment, you'll be stuck unscrewing the parts and having a bear of a time getting them lined up so they'll all fit together and also have the door fit nicely against the cabinet so it covers up the opening correctly. 

Here's where the instructions won a few points back for the manufacturer from me. The kit includes two paper templates. One has outlines of the cage assembly footprint. You put this one down on the cabinet floor with the front edge marked, and you line it up with the front edge of the cabinet space. The second template is for lining up the brackets at the proper location on the door panel. It also is marked so that you can line up the bottom edge to the first template's front edge. There are markings on both templates so you can line them up. The idea here is that the templates will show you where to start your holes for the wood screws. It actually works well and I got it right the first time, getting the cage assembly fastened to the cabinet floor and the door brackets on the door. Then the final step is to mount the door brackets to the front of the cage where there are two housings to put the door brackets in. 

The only problem I had in this last step was that the wood screws the manufacturer provides are not very good quality and I broke a couple of them on installation. Fortunately enough of them worked that the job could be completed.

In the end, I gave the unit four out of five stars. I wanted to give three-and-a-half, but Amazon doesn't support half star ratings. While the price was much nicer than the OEM rack and rails I had before, it wasn't exactly cheap, and you can tell the quality is middling at best. It does, however, work, and if I get ten years out of it it'll have been a worthy purchase. If you end up getting one, get your own wood screws for the final steps. 

Comparison: Squadron Signal book 1086 U-2 Spyplane 1988 vs 2002 editions

Book 1086 U-2 in action (1988 vs 2002)

This'll be a quick one. The U-2 Dragon Lady is one of the intriguing aircraft from the Lockheed "Skunkworks" division that was ultimately made famous for developing secret reconnaissance aircraft, notably the U-2 and the SR-71 Blackbird.

Squadron Signal Publishing released a book about the U-2 in 1988 as part of the "in action" line, book number 1086. Fourteen years later in 2002 they would publish an update with an additional eight pages, covering the use of the U-2 since the first book's release.

So if you're a collector and you don't have them, do you get both or just the update? It depends on what you like. I love the cover art and while sometimes an update to an earlier edition of a Squadron book has the same artwork, in this instance they chose to put on a new cover. So I bought both because both are nice covers. 

The original release had a Don Greer painting of the famous incident where Francis Gary Powers, a U-2 pilot, was shot down while on a recon mission over Russia. It was huge news back in May, 1960 when it happened. Since this is easily the most famous incident involving the U-2, it is curious Squadron decided to go with a different cover for the update.

The 2002 edition features a newer variant of the U-2, a U-2R, in 1991 during Desert Shield and Desert Storm deployment. I can't find a signature on the cover, so I has to assume that Don Greer is also the artist as he's the only contributor credited with "color" art in the credits.

If you're tight on cash, just get the update. You'll miss out only on the 1988 edition's cover and perhaps you can live with that. If you're a completist, get both, and if you're a sucker for the art like me, get both. 

If you can't find the update, which appears to be rarer in the wild than the 1988 edition, then just get the first edition as it's a great book even without the updates. 

Book 1086 was published before Squadron started printing the disclaimer that the "in action" books were only supposed to be focused on chronicling the development of a craft and its development through variants and not include other information. Earlier entries in the "in action" series like 1086 are, in my opinion, better reads since they tend to include some operational history and sometimes even pilot testimonials, and are therefore more interesting. I've touched on this before, but later in the game, the "in action" books started to become very light on text and more like picture books with captions; still good reads but with less meaty content.

Another Story from a Used Book

A few months back, I wrote of hidden stories in used books [blogger]. I came across another interesting one a couple days ago, as part of my bid to shore up my Squadron Signal book collection. I purchased a bundle of used aircraft books at eBay and in reviewing the copies, I saw a couple had an address label in the inside front cover.

The label identified CAPT Bob Munsey and LCDR Rosemary Munsey, likely the former owners of the book. I was curious about the history this hinted at, and did a little research. I was not fully prepared for the journey this search would take me on.

It all starts well enough. The ranks listed by the names on the label indicate they were both in the US Navy. This appears to be true: there are publicly available obituaries for both.

Charles Robert Munsey Jr. [funeralsolutions.net] served twenty-nine years in the US Navy. He attended the United States Naval Academy and spent time on a destroyer and several carriers. Some posts on his tribute page point to his service as an aviation maintenance officer. He retired while working at the Pentagon with the rank of Captain. He was involved in church activities and, no surprise given his ownership of some Squadron Signal books, modeling and aircraft restoration. One of his sons, Bill Munsey, has a video clip from a news piece on Bob [YouTube] taking a ride on a restored Ford tri-motor.

Without concrete evidence or testimonial, one must assume Munsey met his wife in the navy. Rosemary [scholar.lib.vt.edu] appears to have been quite accomplished and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander back in the eighties, when women didn't have the same presence, mobility, and support they have in the military now is quite a feat. Like Munsey, Rosemary worked in aviation maintenance at various posts around the nation. 

Rosemary Munsey passed away in 1996 from breast cancer. Charles Robert Munsey Jr. passed away in 2023. You can fill in one blank and figure the aviation books I picked up in 2024 probably ultimately came from Munsey's estate sale.

Then, looking over the posts in the Robert Munsey obituary page, some ugliness materializes. A person claiming to be his niece points to Munsey's record as a sex offender. And this too appears to be true. Munsey was convicted in 1999 in Virginia and after moving to Florida was active in the Florida Action Committee, an organization with the goal of advocating for reasonable sex offender laws. 

This discovery saddened me because minus the criminal past, Munsey would have absolutely been the kind of person I would have enjoyed chatting with. His military service and love for aviation are things I respect. 

Let's take this as an opportunity to learn. Browsing a few more of the articles about Munsey, I learn there's a community of sex offenders that have paid their debts but now cannot integrate fully into society. There is an understandable stigma around them and I too would give pause to an association. And yet, isn't this using too broad a brush without investigating the situations in more detail? Some of the posts on Munsey's FAC memorial page tell of an offender that was misled into the crime due to falsified records on a person's age. Another laments of the loneliness and sense of abandonment felt and the challenges of trying to find a job. Offenders in any crime should pay, no question, but after that, what do you do to ensure they have a sustainable path to being productive members of society?

I haven't named any other parties except for those on the address label from the book out of respect for the family. All of this is public if you want to see it for yourself. And my condolences to all involved parties. 

From buying and selling old airplane books to pondering crime and punishment. What an exercise for a Sunday morning!

Comparison: Squadron Signal P-47 Thunderbolt in action (book 1208 vs 10208/50208)

Well this is interesting. I'm continuing to contrast the various editions of Squadron Signal books as I get them, in cases where there was an updated edition. This exercise is to help both myself and other collectors know when it's worth getting both editions or if there's no real reason to get both except for completeness.

Sometimes the update is exactly the same as the original release except for several new pages of material. In these cases, you really only need the updated version. Last post, I found that the A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around editions (5541 vs 25041/65041) had an overlap of about 85% of the material, but as both books are the same number of pages, the editors omitted some of the original content to make room for new content. I didn't always agree with the choices made for the updated edition, but mostly they were the same book.

It appears that early updates in the "in action" series were incremental add-ons of pages. More recent updates seem to have more changes. Today I'm looking at P-47 Thunderbolt in action, book 1208 from 2007, versus book 25041(softcover)/65041(hardcover) from 2014. And in this case, collectors, I would recommend buying both books. 

The books do have some duplication of content, but that's mostly in the diagrams and charts. The most obvious differences:

• The authors of the books are different (Larry Davis for 1208, and David Doyle for the 2014 edition). 
• The updated edition has eighty-eight pages to the earlier version's sixty.
• The books feature different paintings for both front and back covers although all four appear to be from the prolific Don Greer, very much a household name for Squadron books. I love the art, so I'd get both editions just for that, but the differences continue.
• There's only a minimal duplication of the photos. Doyle appears to have taken pains to use different pictures than Davis, even when the photos might be similar and of the same version of the plane. 
• Much of update's extra pages cover other experimental variants of the Thunderbolt.
• The update has a higher number of color photos.
• There is some overlap in text content. Doyle has reworded much of it in his edition and often will reduce the amount of text provided for each variant of the P-47. Compensating for this, however, he has added many more photos and captions.

The books are different enough that a detailed comparison would be painstaking and unproductive. The main differences are sufficient to justify getting both books.

Comparison: Squadron Signal A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around (book 5541 versus 65041)

As I'm putting together my Squadron Signal collection, I am trying to not buy older editions as the newer ones are usually better and may have more pages.

The evolution of updated editions in Squadron's history is a little funky. Early on, they'd update an existing "in action" book, for example, by keeping the same cover art and material but simply adding more pages, usually about eight. They'd add an "updated" banner across one of the corners of the book. But the new version would essentially be identical to the previous one except for the new pages. In those cases it is an easy decision to skip the earlier edition unless you're a completist and want both. 

Things got weirder after a while. Sometimes the newer edition would have a different cover. Sometimes the newer edition would have different text or pictures. Now it became harder to decide which one to buy if you were coming into it late as I am. 

So I'm going to do some cataloging of differences between editions. I'll probably do a table of differences at some point for all the books where I can see the differences, but in some cases, like the case of the A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around, I discovered marked differences, and some of the changes aren't necessarily for the better. Here goes...

I'm looking at the A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around book, number 5541 (2006) versus the later edition released in softcover as book 25041 and hardcover as book 65041 (both 2013). What did Squadron decide to change in the seven-year update? And apologies for the poor readability of the table; tables aren't Blogger's forte.

A-4 Skyhawk Walk Around, 5541 vs 65041

Cover Art

The front and back covers are the same in both editions. I can't fault them for this because the front cover is a great painting of an A-4 pilot named John McCain standing in front of his Skyhawk, before two fateful incidents. The first would be when a weapon misfired while McCain was still on deck, leading to the tragic fire on the USS Forrestal. The second would be later when McCain was shot down over Vietnam. 

The back cover shows an Israeli Skyhawk in colorful camouflage.

So far, so good.

Frontispiece

5541 features a nice side profile shot of two US Marine A-4 jets flying in formation by a rock structure. It's a nice photo.

The 2013 edition replaces the 2006 edition's photo with a nice shot of the Blue Angels flying the A-4 in a pyramid formation. I like both photos but 2013's is more dramatic and so I have to give Squadron props on this change.

Introduction and Indicia

Almost all the "in action" and "walk around" books started with at least a half page up to a few pages of solid text introduction that often summarized the story of the featured aircraft. 5541 and 65041 have the same text in the introduction, but the 2006 edition includes a small headshot of aircraft designer Ed Heinemann. Why did the later edition remove this? Heinemann is one of the most successful and beloved of aircraft designers and it's a disappointment his picture was removed. It's possible there were licensing issues preventing Squadron from using the picture but the omission is no less disappointing even if justifiable. 

Book 25041/65041 does a better job with the indicia page. Both books include the author's acknowledgement statement and some copyright information. But the 2013 edition also includes the "About the Walk Around Series" text block explaining the goal of the category. In addition, the newer edition also includes thumbnails of the front and back cover and captions for each. The 2006 edition has the captions but not the thumbnails.

Body

Most of the editions share the same photos and text but unlike earlier updates that feature identical material except for a new set of pages, there were several changes in the Skyhawk Walk Around. Here are some of the most notable:

Pages	25041/65041 Changes from 5541	Comment
3,4	Subject: Aircraft development.  Grammatical error corrected in one photo caption
5	Subject: A-4B pictures "Navy Attack Squadron" added before VA-76. Upper right corner picture of A4B is zoomed in.	The zoom cuts off the tail, even though caption is discussing distinguishing features, including one on the tail.
6	Subject: Cutaway diagram Drawing is slightly smaller. Some text slightly rearranged. VMA-225 is prefaced by "Marine Attack Squadron".	Would not have reduced size of cutaway as it's already hard to see a picture with so many details.
7	Subject: JATO bottles and refueling Upper left pic is cropped. Caption for upper right photo is expanded.	This was a good crop; the part cut out was just extraneous terrain and none of the aircraft shot was affected.
8	Subject: A-4C, A-4F, Blue Angel Same pictures as 5541 but rearranged to give the Blue Angel A-4 an enlargement. Other captions were slightly rearranged with no loss of information.
9	Subject: Gladiators pic, tailhook study Captions enhanced with italicized carrier names and a few extra details, such as noting that one adversary A-4 at Top Gun has a Cuban flag insignia.
10	Subject: B&W TA-4E pics Captions better split between the two pictures
11	Subject: TA-4 FACs Caption regarding VA-126 is significantly reduced, with a sentences about the squadron history removed.	That's cool stuff, why remove it?
12	Subject: Fueling probe and nose Additional and more detailed captions.
13	Subject: Radome Reworked captions, more about Israeli air force
14, 15	Subject: B&W fuselage and engine spread Resized photos, added more detail in captions
16, 17	Subject: Air brakes, chaff dispenser, nose gear No major changes
18, 19	Subject: B&W photo set Same pictures, captions rearranged, and one caption on page 19 is misplaced with wrong picture.
20, 21	Subject: TA-4 color spread Same photos, more captions added on page 21
22, 23	Subject: B&W photo spread with cutaway drawing Nearly identical.
24	Subject: Cockpit
25	Subject: Ejection seat pictures Same pictures but one seat photo is zoomed, showing closer view of shoulder harness and overhead ejection activation handle while cutting out seat and lower activation handle. Some extra detail in the captions.	Didn't like this zoom choice, but you can see the lower handle in other photos.
26	Subject: Cockpit panel diagram Numbers in diagram items list are adjusted to be consecutive unique integers. Original has 18 and 18A, update has 18 and 19.
27	Subject: Ejection seat diagram No major changes
28, 29	Subject: Cockpit detail Same photos, some reoriented and zoomed, some added detail in captions
30, 31	Subject: Cockpit detail Same pictures, minor modifications to some captions
32, 33	Subject: Cockpit detail
34	Subject: Intake detail
35 - 37	Subject: Tail detail Functionally identical, some rewording of captions.
38	Subject: Antenna diagram, fuselage details No major changes
39	Subject: Ejection sequence diagram, fuselage details
40	Subject: A-4F color shots
41	Subject: Export A-4 pictures
42, 43	Subject: B&W spread, tie-down location diagram Captions modified. Mention of USS Intrepid loses its code designation (CVS-11)	Not sure why this was done, there was room to leave it.
44, 45	Subject: Landing gear detail Pg 45, one of the B&W pictures of an A-4 on carrier approach is replaced by a color shot of one doing a touch and go.	Color is appreciated, but the original photo showed the tailhook extended. There are however other photos showing the tailhook down in book
46	Subject: Variant evolution profile drawings
47	Subject: A-4E specification sheet
48	Subject: Wheel wells and tailhook and catapult attachment points Pictures have been resized and formatted in more structured 3x2 arrangement
49	Subject: A-4 squadron pictures Caption detail removed on landing gear operation in event of hydraulic failure: Gear is hydraulic but gear doors are mechanical. In event of hydraulic failure, the gear rests on gear doors. Pilot can manually release the doors and the landing gear will fall into deployed position	This is a great bit of detail that's perhaps not important to modelers but nice for historians. I wish they would have not removed it.
50, 51	Subject: A-4E and OA-4M profile diagrams
52	Subject: A-4M color shot, plus two landing gear detail shots The A-4M shot is completely omitted in updated edition, but the two landing gear shots are kept and zoomed. The A-4M shot's caption had a mix of information about VMA-324 and some history of why the A-4 was originally designed for the marines. Most of its relevant  A-4 information is retained as extra language in the two landing gear picture captions.	I liked the photo that was removed, but fortunately they retained most of the interesting A-4 data from the caption. The zoomed landing gear shots are useful and probably very helpful for modelers.
53	Subject: Two color shots of A-4 squadrons, one VMA-331 and one Top Gun A-4 Functionally identical, some reformatting and zoom of the adversary A-4 picture
54, 55	Subject: B&W wing detail spread Nearly identical, a sentence from one caption was added to one of the others.
56	Subject: Control surface detail Improved caption positioning
57	Subject: A-4 squadron pictures
58	Subject: Ordnance photos Error: Caption for loading of Mk-82 on an A-4 is used twice; thus one caption is lost: "Marine loads 20 mm rounds in an A-4E of VMA-331 at Chu Lai, December 1967. Each gun weighed 88 pounds."	Come on, man.
59	Subject: Ordnance photos One B&W photo of an A4D-2N (A-4C) doing AGM-12C Bullpup missile testing at Pax River, is replaced by a color photo of a Harpoon missile closeup.	Some of the replaced photo's Bullpup information transferred to a different picture's caption. This change is OK, although I liked the original photo, the update shows a newer weapon in the Harpoon. A fair trade, and there are Bullpups in other photos.
60, 61	Subject: A-4 squadron and some ordnance pictures
62, 63	Subject: A-4 squadron and some ordnance photos
64, 65	Subject: Variety of adversary, test, and export A-4s Some photo resizing. Details about squadron VC-8 were dropped in update.
66	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set
67	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set (side  shot of A-4E of VA-144 in flight; a Marine A-4E in hangar at Bien Hoa; a group of A-4s lined up for aerial refueling) This page is completely dropped in update with 5541's page 71 in this space instead.	I guess I can live without yet another profile shot and the hangar shot doesn't show much, but the refueling shot is really cool and I wish it was kept.
68, 69	Subject: Color profile drawings spread Some caption positions changed
70	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set Caption positioning changed
71	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set Updated edition does not have this page. Instead are some color shots of export (Singapore) A-4s. In 5541 this appears on page 80
72, 73	Subject: Color profiles drawings spread
74, 75	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set These pages are missing in updated edition. In their place is a Blue Angels A-4 color spread.	I like the Blue Angles, but not sure I like this decision.
76, 77	Subject: Color 1970s A-4 photos
78, 79	Subject: B&W Vietnam Skyhawks set These pages are missing in updated edition. Instead is a color spread of export A-4s.	Hate losing good Vietnam shots, and the original captions have good information on weapons usage. But the color is nice and export information is a legit part of A-4 history
80	Subject: Singapore export color shots This page is moved to page 71 in updated edition, and instead is a fitting farewell shot of the A-4 against a sunset.	I like the artistic and poetic update, plus the caption identifies the end-of-service date.

The moral of the story is that while most of the time the updated edition adds on to the older edition and you don't lose much material, sometimes that's not the case. 

The Missing Pages

Some of the original pages removed from the later edition follow. It was a shame to lose these since there's a lot to learn from the Vietnam material.

Pages 67, 74, 75, 78, and 79.