MUSTANG DESIGNER: Edgar Schmued and the P-51

This is an excellent book, and serves as both a biography about Edgar Schmued and a history of the engineering work behind the P-51 and several other aircraft. Schmued led the design team that created the P-51. It does not cover all of the details behind the development of the P-51, leaving out the politics of how the USAAF finally adopted this half British aircraft. The best part of this book is that it is possible to see how closely the North American engineers worked with the test pilots and field reports; it was this tightly coupled engineering culture which responded quickly to every input, every flaw, that enabled the P-51 Mustang to reach perfection first and beat out its rivals.Another book "P-51 Mustang: Development of the Long Range Escort Fighter" covers the bigger picture of the USAAF's overall search for a better fighter plane. This book very much complements "Mustang Designer" and should be read to get the full flavor of what happened with the P-51's development. For example, "P-51 Mustang" talks about the role of Colonel Thomas Hitchcock in championing the P-51 with the Roosevelt administration at a time when some in the USAAF brass were trying to kill it (an upper crust polo player, he had direct connections to the Roosevelt administration), but fails to mention Hitchcock's ultimate fate. "Mustang Designer" mentions almost in passing that Hitchcock was killed while test flying a P-51D on April 18, 1944, but does not go into the details of how crucial he was to the adoption of the P-51 by the USAAF.One reviewer complained about the lack of information about Schmued's use of conical sections in designing the curves of the airplane. There is a half-page description of Schmued's use of conical sections on the P-51 - page 57, which does explain the principles, if not the details of what Schmued did."Mustang Designer" does clear up some urban legends about the P-51. It was the British who started the myth that the P-51 was designed by a German who had worked for Messerschmitt.Schmued was indeed a German-Austrian, with an Austrian citizenship until he immigrated to the U.S. by way of Brazil. He was sponsored to come to the United States through his excellent work for General Motors in Brazil (immigration rules were extremely strict at that time - he was one of 794 people with Austrian citizenships admitted in the 1929 quota) and went straight to work for Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America, which was an aircraft company that was owned by General Motors and based in New Jersey. He joined North American Aviation when it was reorganized as an aircraft manufacturer. Schmued never worked for Messerschmitt; he did work for Fokker, but, despite its name, this was a wholly American owned company that happened to have Dutchman Anthony Fokker as its head.The book goes on with details about the later problems with the F-82 (the USAF forced North American to use a two-stage supercharger Allison V-1710, which was an engineering flop, instead of the Packard-Merlin engine). Schmued also had a hand in the designs of the F-86 and F-100, but the exact details of what he did are not spelled out in this book. Schmued left North American in 1952, after Dutch Kindelberger became ill and started to devolve power to Lee Atwood, with whom Schmued disagreed intensely (the intensity of this disagreement is seen by the fact that Schmued was just three years shy of being fully invested in a pension from North American when he left - as a result, he received no pension from North American).This book does not talk about the post-Schmued, post-Kindelberger years at North American, but they were mostly filled with a series of aircraft designs that never made it into production. The F-100 would be the last fighter plane that North American would produce. Schmued would leave North American before the F-100 flew (he lost a final dispute over changes to the design of the F-100), and it is clear from the subsequent prolonged teething problems of the F-100 that North American sorely missed Schmued's troubleshooting genius.With Kindelberger and Schmued gone, the excellent engineering culture of North American seemed to wither under the mediocre stewardship of Lee Atwood. North American went into the space business, but this would culminate in the disastrous fire that killed the Apollo 1 astronauts in 1967. The negative backlash from that disaster (North American had built the command module that caught fire) ultimately forced North American to merge with Rockwell, which then buried this once famous name completely. (This later period of North American's history is not covered in this book).Schmued, on the other hand, would go on to work for Northrop, and would help revive the flagging engineering designs of that company by designing the F-5. Ironically, the person who would hire him was Oliver Echols, the general in the USAAF who had played a semi-antagonistic role against the P-51 during its early days (Echols's role against the P-51 is described in the book "P-51 Mustang").Also not mentioned in this book is the fact that Schmued's F-5 design would evolve into Northrop's YF-17, which then became the F-18, the Navy's current all-purpose and ONLY fighter plane (now that the F-14s have all been chopped up to keep Iran from obtaining parts for their remaining F-14s).Overall this is an extremely valuable book for understanding the history of the P-51, F-82, F-100, North American Aviation, the F-5, and the man behind all of those success stories, Edgar Schmued.Amazon has four listings for various other printings of this book:0517088207 Random House 1992 (hardcover)0517567938 Crown 1st edition 1990 (hardcover)B000KRITOC Orion Books 1990 (hardcover)B000QRPVEC Orion books 1991 (hardcover)All of these are out of print, and so this paperback reprint by Smithsonian Institute Press is the most readily available.

While this book did give some interesting insight into Edgar Schmued's design philosophies and accomplishments, it contained far too much information on other aviation manufacturing statistics which weren't really relevant. Actual details of Edgar's life and career were way too sparse considering the length of the book. As another reviewer commented, the pictures in this book are basically fairly poor quality and I think the author could have done a better job on insisting the photographs be of higher quality in the book's printing. In summary, this book does give some additional insight into the "behind the scenes" development of the Mustang, but in my opinion leaves a lot to be desired and documented.

Well written, lots of history

This book has long been out of print so I bought it used. When it arrived, I quickly noticed paperclips on many pages. I HATE it when people paperclip pages. The clips deform and sometime tear the pages or leave rust stains. These paperclips did those things but they also marked the pages that held autographs by the author and numerous prominent aviators like Chuck Yeager.The story the book contains is riveting and entertaining. The P-51 Mustang is an iconic aircraft and the role Edgar Schmued played in bringing it to life was extraordinary. And Schmued's work was not limited to the Mustang; his body of work, extending from the Golden Age of Aviation through the Jet Age, is what raises him to the heights of designers like Johnson, Messerschmitt, and Mikoyan. And the reader comes away with the sense that he was a "lucky" designer. The Mustang's laminar flow wing design was an after thought flowing from a NACA research paper. The story of the Merlin engine is well known; what is less known is that the Mustang's original buyer, the Royal Air Force, was so disatisfied with the early Mustang I's that they gave them to the Russians who didn't like them either.If you can find the book you will be rewarded. Maybe not with autographs but with a great story about a unique personality.

5 stars for quality of writing and content. 1 star for production values. How can an institution such as Smithsonian Press allow such a poorly printed publication? Others have noted the grainy old newspaper style photos. The copy I got even had pages of type that looked like it was done on a copy machine that needs maintenance. This great book deserves better.Mustang Designer is a goldmine for the aviation enthusiast who is interested in a deeper understanding of the aviation industry, the design and production, the people involved. The section on the 1930s pre-Mustang aviation scene was very interesting because it gave me the context of what led up to the Mustang.Edgar Schmeud is brought back to life. This genius did not have an engineering degree, was not a pilot, and didn't even get a ride in a Mustang until 1981! Besides his brilliance, the author portrays him as a genuinely decent person. That he was not respected, was pushed out by the organization he worked for is a common phenomenon. I just read a book about the Battle of Britain that showed how Air Marshal Hugh Dowding was fired shortly after saving western civilization. And another about Captain Joseph Rochefort, the man who cracked the Japanese code that made the difference in the Battle of Midway. His reward was being put in charge of a dry dock. Alan Turing's work saved ship loads of lives: the current movie shows his reward."No good deed goes unpunished" is a saying with much basis in human experience.

In depth

Básicamente explica la historia de Edgar Schmued y de cómo él y su equipo se enfrentaron a los diferentes problemas que iban apareciendo durante el desarrollo de los P51. En la primera parte el libro pone en contexto la situación de la aviación militar estadounidense justo antes de la 2a guerra mundial, a continuación se explica el desarrollo del P51 y finaliza con los años posteriores a la guerra. Personalmente me gusta también la crítica que se hace a las organizaciones que empiezan prácticamente de la nada y hasta que se convierten en grandes corporaciones donde la burocracia ahoga el I+D. En definitiva, se me ha hecho corto, sobretodo la parte técnica cuando empieza a tratar sobre las alas de flujo laminar, el efecto Meredith o los problemas de flujo laminar y turbulento en la entrada del radiador. Le pongo 5 estrellas por su contenido, aunque algunas fotos en la versión Kindle tienen algún defecto, eso es lo de menos.

Great book, so wonderfully informative and yet almost written like a story. The first chapter is a bit tough, with all the technical info, but after that the book really came in to it's own. One of my favourite books on aircraft.

This is a fabulous book about WW2 American fighter development in general and the Mustang in particular. Highly recommended, well researched, and with lots of quotes from the designers including Ed Schmued. Pictures aren't up to the standard of the text, so if you want a glossy coffee table book of Mustang pics look elsewhere.

Beschrieben wird eine Erfolgsgeschichte: ein mit deutscher Gründlichkeit versehener und ausgebildeter Ingenieur - Enthusiast geht nach Amerika, bekommt dort seine Chance, und die Briten tun ihr damals bestes Triebwerk dazu. Herausgekommen aus diesem frühen Beispiel (teils unfreiwilliger) internationaler Zusammenarbeit ist das mit Abstand schönste Propellerjagdflugzeug ( in der D - Version) aller Zeiten (sorry, Mr. Reginald Mitchell !), und das wird in diesem Buch hervorragend geschildert. Noch heute sehen Tucano und Pilatus Trainer fast wie Kopien aus, was bestimmt kein Zufall ist. Ein klasse Buch!

紙質と写真がよければ五つ星にしたい生産管理にしても先進のメーカーで、社長キンデルバーガーも太っ腹だったのが薄々わかる。同じくシュミードもである。新進のメーカーらしく、張り切っていたのがよく判る。必要とあれば大胆に研究者も雇っている。これを読むまで、実績のないメーカーに発注するなど英国使節団も、いい度胸していると思っていた。が結構、良心的な連中が揃っていたので、信頼を得たのではと納得（米メーカーはどれも性能誇大で評判はかなり厳しかった）。