At the Controls: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Cockpits

This is a very nice, broad look at lots of cockpit interiors and aircraft exteriors. It's not as good as Nijboer and Patterson's Cockpits of the Cold War, but I found the pictures very clear and devoid of the overly-dramatic (and obscuring) artsy-fartsy photography typical of aviation history books. This is a Smithsonian book, covering aircraft in the Smithsonian collection, so the authors and photographers had unfettered access to each of the aircraft involved. This is evident in the consistent image quality. The images are still not as inspiring as Patterson's work, though, and he had to go traipse across the world to get his aircraft. The thin volume covers the Wright Flyer to the Space Shuttle, which is a little overreaching in my opinion. I tend to like more narrow focus. The prose is a historian's perspective, not the gritty pilot first-person accounts captured in Cockpits of the Cold War. It's not bad prose, but it's clear that the cover of the book correctly lists the writers as "editor" rather than "author." Still, this is a must-have tome for any serious aircraft afficianado.

If you love aircraft, this is a book for you ! The photography of the cockpits is stunning. The information about the control and instruments of flying from the day Wright Brothers, to the Spirit of St. Louis, the Warbirds of WW II, to today's Spacecraftis extraodinary ! I bought the book just to have a photo of the greenhouse of th B-29 Superfortress, my plane in WW II. I was not disapointed. A plus was a view of the A Squares of my 497th bomb Group, 73rd Wing of the 20th Air force in formation.