The Harleyford Series

[Dutch522]

Long before there were Datafiles, Aeronaut books, and the Internet, these books were the hot setup as far as Great War references went, and along with the Munson books and the Profiles formed the core of my WWI aviation library. I still refer to them constantly, a half-century later.

It was many years before I was able to collect nearly the whole series, I'm still missing Fokker, the Man and His Aircraft although I have a digital copy of it knocking around somewhere up in the Cloud (wherever the h*ll that is; here, there, and everywhere as the Beatles might put it). My first one, Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War was a Christmas gift from my parents around 1970. I think my favorite is Marine Aircraft, which I bought from my late friend Leonard Opdyke, publisher of WWI Aero magazine, sometime in the mid-1980s. Whether it's ever been surpassed as a one-stop reference on Great War floatplanes and flying boats I don't know. But I doubt it.

Dutch

[Rookie]

Wow, that's a great collection Dutch!

I have the two yellow volumes in the top row.

"Aircraft of the 1914-1918 war" has very good drawings of the Handley Page V/1500, with details of the rudder control cables.

Cheers Willem

[lone modeller]

I have heard about these books but never actually seen one. References like these were always difficult to find because bookshops rarely stocked them - they had to be ordered and at the time my funds were limited. In addition as I could not see them I did not know what I was buying.

A very interesting collection which I am sure is still useful for reference.

Stephen.

[macsporran]

Great choice Dutch - the Harleyfords and Harboroughs were the mainstay of modellers for years before the advent of Windsock and suchlike.

I used to go to Dundee Reference Library to pore over their copies of the Fighters and Bombers books for school projects (and models) in the 60s, then when I got to Uni, realised many of the Edinburgh bookshops had copies at affordable rates, I kept buying them and finally had a full set by about the 90s (including all the post war titles and the ultra rare Miles and Westland books.) Stupidly I then gave up modelling and sold off my entire library (including complete sets of Datafiles and Windsock Magazines!!!)

Coming back to the hobby with the advent of WNW, I managed to buy again most of the Harleyford titles and I had to get again all the post WW! stuff, (although not the two rare ones).

So I think I've got a pretty complete set. Thing is the ones I had in the 90s were all mint, but a few of these are good+ but not mint. (BTW You need the US Army title for Jennies and Tommy Morse etc a well as Fokker to complete the WW! angle)

Here are mine in one of the book cupboards.
Sandy