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Joint Strike Fighter
Design and Development of the International Aircraft
by Gerard Keijsper

Over the last 60 years the US, European, and Russian aerospace industries spent the equivalent of many hundreds of millions of dollars to satisfy the military strategists’ dream of combining the best features of several different planes into one do-it-all aircraft. Gerard Keijper’s excellent book tells the story of how the US aerospace industry took many ideas, some good others improbable, over a quarter century of model and wind tunnel testing to create, after many iterations, a viable supersonic vertical take off fighter: the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. This single-seat, single-engine stealth multirole fighter can perform close air support, tactical bombing, and air defense missions and will be built in three versions: conventional takeoff and landing, a short take off and vertical-landing variant, and a carrier-based variant.

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International Automotive Media Award: Best Book of 2009

Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed
by Michael Argetsinger

This biography consists of two books, this 344-page text version with only 40 photos and a second volume, Mark Donohue: His Life in Photographs consisting of several hundred photographs with relevant captions. Argetsinger has written a remarkable and fitting tribute to one of America’s greatest race drivers. That it has already won several awards including the prestigious International Automotive Media Award is no surprise; Argetsinger’s previous work, Walt Hansgen: His Life and the History of Post War American Road Racing was similarly praised and feted in 2006.

This is a significant book fully worthy of the IAMAs. In a full-time effort that required more than three years to complete, Argetsinger interviewed over 211 people close to the subject, and enjoyed not only access to all the family papers but those of the Penske organization as well. He also had access to the unpublished tapes made for Donohue’s own book The Unfair Advantage.

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Mark Donohue: His Life in Photographs
by Michael Argetsinger

This book is a companion volume to Argetsinger’s excellent bio Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed. Publisher David Bull clearly has his fingers on the pulse of what readers want—and are able to afford. His books are not cheap but there hasn’t yet been a case of a David Bull book not being good value for money. Still, Bull’s desire was to keep the price of the Excellence book to under $40 and, since it runs to a hefty 250,000 words, the only way to achieve it was to cut back the number of photos. So, for the reader able and willing to plunk down another $39.95 the 40 photos in that book can be augmented with this companion volume by the same author containing almost 250 photos!

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Race Car Vehicle Dynamics
by William F Milliken and Douglas L Milliken

and

Race Car Vehicle Dynamics: Problems, Answers and Experiments
by Douglas L Milliken, Edward M Kasprzak, L Daniel Metz, William F Milliken

When I received my copy of RCVD—still an SAE bestseller—I felt like the guy at the bottom of the mountain to whom Moses handed the Ten Commandments. All the knowledge contained in the Holy Grail of how vehicles handle had just become mine. I am unaware of any other book that brings together the world’s knowledge on vehicle behavior like this one does. On the macro level RCVD deals with general principles of vehicle dynamics but on the micro level was specifically geared towards racing; it synthesizes fundamental theory and practical application. Any race team that doesn’t have a copy of this well written book is not winning as much as they could!

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A Technical & Operational
History of the Liberty Engine

Tanks, Ships and Aircraft 1917–1960
by Robert J. Neal

One of history’s most famous engines, and very possibly the one with the longest active military service life, the Liberty represents an ambitious and visionary solution to what could have become an intractable problem: in the early days of engine-building, be it automotive or aero, anyone who could wield a wrench or run a slide rule had a go—lots of creativity, and also lots of incompatibility. Engines, invariably, have war-related applications and early on planners in government and industry perceived the need for standardized designs, not just to curb manufacturing inefficiencies but also to facilitate field servicing. The theory behind the Liberty was to standardize aircraft engine design by offering one engine in several sizes (i.e. cylinders) to satisfy any foreseeable need. Scalable from four to twelve cylinders—plus an experimental 24-cylinder and one- and two-cylinder models for test purposes—and with many interchangeable parts the Liberty would find application on land, sea, and in the air and after its multi-decade military career soldiered on in civilian life until even today.

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