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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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A Century of Carrier Aviation:
The Evolution of Ships and Shipborne Aircraft
by David Hobbs

Naval Aviators have a reputation for thinking they’re the cat’s meow. The lay reader can easily enough relate to such obvious difficulties as pilots having to find a tiny and constantly moving runway in pitch-black darkness but have you ever considered how hot funnel gases from the carrier’s engines interacting with cold ambient sea air create turbulence in the path of an approaching plane that is already almost at stall speed while trying to line up with a flight deck that is pitching up and down and side to side? or how the forward speed of the carrier combined with the wind speed affect a plane’s payload and take-off run? Ah, nothing is simple . . .

This large-format book sheds light on these and a hundred other details of the unique challenges posed by environment and hardware.

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The Art of the Engineer
by Ken Baynes and Francis Pugh

Nothing as powerful as a revolution happens without a plan. A “plan” in the most literal sense is what made the Industrial Revolution possible. Plan in the context of this book refers to the scientific and technical illustrations that precede the actual building of things. Rooted in the Renaissance and refined in the architectural and naval draftsmanship of the 16th and 17th centuries, the engineering drawing reached new heights of accuracy, both in terms of meaning as well as in execution, during the Industrial Revolution.

Sadly, many, if not most, of the architects of such plans have been lost to anonymity and obscurity. Only late in the 20th century have there been attempts to rediscover the work of our industrial and pre-industrial forebears and examine not only the impact of their work but how they actually went about their work. Precious few volumes have been devoted to the subject of the engineering drawing and it seems that nothing on the scope or scale of this book existed prior to the 1978–79 landmark exhibition by the Welsh Arts Council of working drawings. Indeed it was that exhibition that provided the impetus for this book, rich with expertly photographed drawings from the 13th century to the present.

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Leo Villa’s Bluebird Album
With 3D Images
by David de Lara with Kevin Desmond

The Leo[poldo Alphonso] Villa of the title spent almost his entire working life with the Campbell family of speed freaks, first Sir Malcolm Campbell (1885–1948) and then his son Donald Malcolm Campbell (1921–1967) who between them held 21 land and water world speed records. Piles of books have been written about the Campbells, all from the outside looking in. This one is different. It is a selection of hundreds of photos Villa took in the 1950s and ’60s of DMC’s record attempts. As chief mechanic, friend, and surrogate father Villa was closer to him than most anybody else and his photos, therefore, show a side of Campbell the press photographers of the day were not privy to. Likewise his photos of the Bluebirds, be it construction, testing, or racing are the kind the press would not have had close enough access or opportunity to take. Moreover, Villa was one of the few people on the Bluebird team to keep diaries and notebooks and they, along with his video films and piles of photos, survived him.

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Galveston’s The Elissa: The Tall Ship of Texas
by Kurt D Voss

In 1883, then again three years later, the sailing vessel Elissa visited the port of Galveston, Texas. She carried bananas from Tampico, Mexico on that first trip. When her cargo was sold on the dock, Elissa was loaded with bales of cotton bound for Liverpool, England. The destinations after her 12-day Galveston stopover in September, 1886 were nearer as she headed for Pensacola, Florida and other Gulf ports. These two seemingly unimportant visits to Galveston’s busy seaport set into motion events that would, almost 90 years later, save this sailing vessel from destruction.

Elissa was built as a three-masted, barque-rigged, steel-hulled vessel in 1877 by Aberdeen, Scotland’s noted shipbuilder Alexander Hall and Company. She measured 205 feet in total length and 141 feet at the waterline. Her first owner, Henry Fowler Watt, had gone to sea as an apprentice at age 14 or 15, gaining his master’s license at 28. He owned and operated five different sailing ships at various times during his lifetime.

Unfortunately, at the time Elissa was built, the beauty and graceful elegance of sail was rapidly being replaced by the speed and convenience of steam power. Still, the Elissa traveled the world’s oceans, carrying the kinds of smaller cargoes that Watt could find for her. During an 1897 North Atlantic storm Elissa was heavily damaged and Watt was forced to sell her to pay her repair bills.

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