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[whiskee]

 I have two great books I would like to share with you guys, one is "War Planes of the Axis" by David C. Cooke copyright 1942 and Warbirds, American Legends Of WW2 by Jeffery L. Ethell.

My copy of War Planes of the Axis belonged to my Grandfather, he died when when my mother was a child and this is the only thing I have of his and its a first edition copy of the book! Since the book was published early in the war, it provides a very unique perspective on some early versions of the German fighters, bombers,and recon planes we know and love. it also features Italian, and Japanese aircraft as well. If you have not seen this book you must! I have checked Amazon and  believe  it is easy to find.

The second book Warbirds American Legends Of WW2  I picked up at a Borders a few years back in a bargain bin. It has the best collection of full color pictures of the P-38, P-51, and P-40. It only covers those planes, but i think this guy has compiled the best color photos of those planes in existence and put them in this book. It is a must for skinners.

well thats it for now. Just wanted to share that.

[vanir]

Nice references. For early publications they are awesome for historical perspectives in the published region but especially where German aircraft are concerned there was some widespread confusion which persisted all the way to very recent publication. The modern convention, particularly for later models is to give specification by wk.n. rather than model, which are almost entirely ambiguous. Even right from the beginning specification of any given example could be very circumstantial and customisation was routine. Model specifications are best though as an average rather than any strict convention even at the factory, an Arado produced Messer commonly wasn't the same thing as a Regensburg Messer, with different engine, specs, same model listing with the Luftwaffe though.
Older publications, even postwar test logbooks like Brown's are often inaccurate for technical specifications (his Dora-9 for example was actually a D-11 with a different engine but they didn't know there was such a thing when he tested the aircraft supplied, only that American flight test evaluations of other Doras didn't match his until the one he tested was handed over to the Smithsonian and examined years later).
This is a pretty common story. Germany didn't have the same industrial philosophies as England or the US (it was closer to British than US though, that is that each model must be examined by individual tail numbers and an average taken as performance specification, and that extreme variation was commonplace even among identical setups produced by the same factory).