Liberty Engine: A Technical & Operational History Hardcover – January 5, 2009

This book is huge. If you are curious about the development of inline, liquid cooled aircraft engines, you have to read this book.I've forgotten how many pages it has, but it is very detailed and covers the period from before the 1st World War to the beginning ofthe 2nd. Even after the Liberty became obsolete for use in aircraft, the Russians used it in their tanks. You have to be really interested in the Liberty engine and its antecedents to get through this book. If you are, this is a great book.

Wow. Might not be everything you wanted to know about the Liberty, but after you read this book you will know a lot more than most. Excellent drawings, and excellent photographs (including color). Want part numbers - you got them. Want to know how much it cost the Government to rebuild one? - page 257. Use in interwar years tank applications. 31 pages of early(and hard to find) pictures of aircraft that used the Liberty.I also goes deeply into the bureaucratic aspect of the engine production - how it came to be. I can only hope someone finally creates something of this magnitude for the Rolls Royce Merlin.

Excellent technical book. Very few engines were used in airplanes , army tanks and boats. This is one of those engines.Extreme details on ever aspect of all variants. Also, contains a lot of pictures of unique planes that used this engine.

A self-professed lover of statistics, the author likens the degree of completeness of this book--in terms of data pertaining to the engine's history--to a 5000-piece puzzle in which all but five random pieces are missing. What little remains missing is not for want of trying to find the answers but due to some snippets of information simply not having been preserved back in the day. If you already know any of the marquee names in the field of engine history you'll be pleased to know they all had some involvement with, and high praise for, this book.From initial idea to development to production, the book covers its complete history and every major application. True to its intent, the Liberty was produced by a number of manufacturers and Neal has consulted all their archives as well as those of the WWI Air Production Board and US Air Service. The over 1000 b/w illustrations are comprised of photos, graphs, charts, reproductions or recreations of correspondence and memos, and technical drawings. The photos are extensively captioned, credited, and illustrate every conceivable aspect: people, factories, engine close-ups, vehicles, even postage stamps of Liberty-engined aircraft.Being a historical rather than a technical treatment the book is easy to read, with the caveat that there are limits to the liveliness and pace of the prose in such an object-specific, in-depth analysis. What formulae and math there is pertains to performance parameters.Eight Appendices cover over 120 pages. They list Liberty contracts (including British; the Russian ones are only summarized) by manufacturer, date and item particulars; production numbers; records of known tests; 1919 specs; a tree diagram chart of the engine's uses; a 60-page section with lists and photos of all Liberty-powered aircraft; and a final section of photos of the various components in several different engines. An annotated Bibliography and a very deep Index leave nothing to be desired.Full review at <speedreaders.info>. Copyright 2010, Sabu Advani

This book is really outstanding. It's a 9" x 11 1/2" laminated hardcover. As is typical for Specialty Press book it also has a dust jacket identical to the laminated covers with the addition of jacket flaps. The book is an impressive, well illustrated, 616 pages.The book is obsessively comprehensive. This is one of those books where one gets the impression that the author felt compelled to include every bit of his research. The book is probably too comprehensive. Subjects with only the vaguest relation to the Liberty engine are included but most readers will be delighted they were. Examples are sidebars discussing the possibility of producing the Rolls-Royce Eagle in the US and the Wright V-1460/V-1560. The subtitle says Tanks, Ships, and Aircraft 1917-1960 and that is exactly what it means. Tank coverage - US, British, and Soviet - is even more comprehensive than aircraft but was fascinating to me who knows almost nothing about tanks. The marine uses were also quite interesting. The chapter on supercharging was fantastic. There is also a comprehensive bibliography with the author's interesting commentaries. The appendices are outstanding and there is an index.The book can be best appreciated by "gearheads". There is little discussion of the basics and the author assumes the reader is familiar with the features of piston engine design. That is not to say others would get nothing from the book but it is definitely aimed at the technically inclined.Complaints are few. The worst is the spotting editing. Mistakes like "formerly" instead of "formally", "loosing" instead of "losing", "Hotel Barkley" instead of "Hotel Barclay" occur all through the book. There is also frequent mangling of aircraft designations. The most annoying is rendering "DH.9A" as "DH-9a". The hyphen is forgivable; the lower case "a" is not. The paper stock is not the best for reproducing photos but there is nothing too egregious.I really can't recommend this book highly enough; it is really outstanding. The price is high; shop around for the best deal. One hopes the author is rewarded in proportion to his efforts. While reading this book I kept saying to myself "I wish engine X or engine Y were the subject of a book like this". Great engine books are not thick underfoot. This is one of the best, if not the best.

This will be a quick hit. If you want the most comprehensive documentation of possibly the most important internal combustion engine of the 20th century, then buy this book. Not only is there nothing that can compare about the liberty engine, it may be the best work ever done on the development of any engine ever. Truly an outstanding work that has a place of pride in my library. Just outstanding.

That's only after browsing ! Interesting history to this engine and quite a life span from 1917 to the 1960's. Apart from the technical details you also have the people that was involved in designing, testing and building it.