WW2 Fighter Performance: Volume 1: Design, Aerodynamics and Flight Performance for the Spitfire Mk I & the Bf 109 E, Battle of Britain Era by Anders F. Jonsson
With a title like that, I couldn't resist reviewing this book, as it is perhaps the very first one to perfectly match this website's subject.
I don't claim to be a critic; I just wanted to provide my honest impression as a reader.
Since I am not a native English speaker, please bear with me and my phrasing.
There is absolutely no sponsorship whatsoever, and I am not affiliated with either the author or Amazon. Links to different Amazon marketplaces are provided at the end.
WW2 aviation books are not rare; dozens come out each year. Most of them are just rehashes of older books, while others are simply AI-generated crap. Well, modern times are what they are, and we just need to learn to avoid
those trash books like the plague. Out of all the new books printed each year, only a very choosing few are worth buying. Most of these focus on a very specific subject, offering extensive details based on archival research.
These books are mostly published by specialized editors. None of them will ever win the "Times Book of the Year," but every single one of them is worth more than any book heavily promoted by the mass media. How many books
available about the Luftwaffe, the RAF, or the USAAF just tell the same stories over and over again, echoing what was written thirty or forty years ago with the same errors and biases? Why are such books still being
printed, and why do people keep buying them? Each year, new books about the Battle of Britain are released and heavily promoted, only to end up being total trash that barely relates to the title's subject. A prime example
is Eagle Day: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain by Victoria Taylor—a "superb historian" (or so she is called) whose work was named the Telegraph History Book of the Year 2025. Well, as a WW2 aviation
enthusiast, you will be deeply disappointed.
The book is just a hodgepodge of extracts from personal letters by Luftwaffe or Flak ground personnel and their families, leading to dubious conclusions. (To put it briefly, because writing any more about it is a waste of time.)
You won't find any of the details you actually bought the book for; in fact, there is no mention of aerial operations at all (there are but everything is mostly wrong).
As a certain fishy general once said in a galaxy far, far away: "It's a trap!".
I have never thrown a book away in my life, but this one ended up at a Salvation Army shop. I'm just glad I bought it second-hand shortly after its release, now I understand why it was already there.
Not every so-called "official historian" can be a Mombeek, Shores, Goss, Morgan, Foreman, Prien or Caldwell. These and dozens of other "non-institutional historians by passion" write much better and more detailed books than those
ego-inflated college scribes. (And I sincerely apologize for not naming all the other great writers who spend their own time and money to provide us with outstanding WW2 aviation books; there are simply too many to list, and my wallet is screaming when hearing all those names.)
So, on one side, we have the "2025 Book of the Year" which won't tell you a single thing about the actual Battle of Britain, despite its title. On the other side, we have a book by a totally unknown author that tackles the
eternal question of the Battle of Britain from a completely new angle. It doesn't rely on the point of view of official history, combat reports, logbooks, or personal feelings written after the heat of battle, but uses
physics and physics alone.
"Oh damn," you might say, "another completely incomprehensible book!"
Well, actually, it is one of the easiest and most readable books about scientific concepts that I have ever read in my entire life.
Let's jump to the eternal question: which one was better in the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire Mk I or the Bf 109 E?
This book will answer all your questions:
WW2 Fighter Performance: Volume 1: Design, Aerodynamics and Flight Performance for the Spitfire Mk I & the Bf 109 E, Battle of Britain Era by Anders F. Jonsson. isbn13-978-9198774818
The author is not a writer in the traditional sense; he is an aerodynamicist, the kind of person who calculates and simulates every part of an aircraft's flight envelope, adapting, changing, and continually recalculating and testing components, as well as the whole airplane, to achieve the desired specifications. He doesn't tell the story with a bias toward one side or the other; he tells it based on numbers and numbers alone. Math isn't biased. Math is pure. Math is truth.
The book is sized so that you could easily read it on the beach while sipping a cocktail, but its 6x9-inch (15x23cm) format is also perfectly suited for reading in bed. The cover nicely depicts the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire against a background of charts and scientific text, so the reader immediately knows what to expect inside.
There are 405 pages in total, split into 44 chapters and sub-sections, excluding the classic preface, acknowledgments, reader's guide, background, introduction, appendices, and abbreviations. That is a lot of chapters, but most of them introduce a specific aerodynamic component. This approach allows the reader to ease into the equations gradually, making it easy to understand the math as the concepts become more complex. The book starts with an introduction to aeronautics and aerodynamics prior to the mid-1930s, offering an overview of the history of wind tunnels and the different approaches used to tackle the issues related to them. After that, the reader learns about the design philosophies behind both aircraft and how engineers worked around the challenges they faced, mostly to meet military requirements.
Then begins the major aerodynamics section, covering wing loading, structures, engines, thrust, cooling, drag, and wing efficiency. Following that, other variables such as armament, production costs, and weight are integrated into
the equations. Actually, all of this serves as a sort of introduction, because after page 216, we dive into the real calculations of various flight parameters: speed, ceiling, climb, sustained and instantaneous turn performance,
acceleration, dive, zoom climb, energy retention, range, general handling, and high-speed handling. We are now 120 pages further along, after having reread some chapters twice or even thrice to fully grasp what lies behind the
numbers.
For chart junkies like me, this is heaven.
The author then embarks on a theoretical exercise, a "what-if" scenario regarding both aircraft—to see how they would handle under different conditions. For instance, what if the Spitfire had a smaller wing (in terms of chord and wing area)? And what would the performance of the Messerschmitt have been if it had featured a high-pressure cooling system or a more powerful engine? Some readers might wonder why this section was included. Personally, I think it perfectly demonstrates what would have happened if the designers had not been constrained by strict military specifications and engine limitations. This also helps validate the simulation engine. While not strictly necessary per se, it is a fantastic addition that highlights what could have been achieved through alternative design approaches.
Finally, we arrive at the author's conclusions. I won't spoil them here, as I leave you the pleasure of discovering them for yourselves.
All I will say is this: do not take what's written in the combat reports for granted (we have some perfect examples here on this website), and that goes for both the RAF and the Luftwaffe. Not everything written about these two planes over the past 80 years is accurate.
Now, for the bad part (well, sort of).
There are no actual flaws in the content itself. The only issues I could find, aside from one chart that could have been a bit darker for better readability, are related to the book's manufacturing. Being a KDP book (printed on demand by
Amazon), the print quality varies depending on the specific Amazon marketplace you order from, as each marketplace has its own local printers. Mine was printed in France. The binding is good, especially for a paperback, and it will
certainly hold together even if the book is read multiple times. The cover is typical for a paperback, so do not expect extreme durability, you will want to be gentle when handling it. The cover colors are somewhat lackluster, though
the blacks are nicely deep, giving the impression of a slight white mist over the image. Again, this mostly depends on your local KDP printer.
The interior pages, however, gave me a bit of a "WTF" moment at first. The paper is quite thin, causing some bleed-through where you can see images from the reverse side. On my copy, the left margin on the left-hand pages was
larger than the right margin on the right-hand pages by about 2mm. This means the text sinks a bit too deep into the gutter (the book's spine binding). While this isn't an issue in the first or last third of the book, when you
are in the middle, you have to slightly press your finger between the pages to read the text. When I first noticed this, I decided it wasn't worth sending the book back, especially since I wanted to dive into it immediately. After
finishing the book, out of pure curiosity, I compared these issues with John Foreman's Fighter Command Diaries, of which I also own two paperbacks. To my surprise, both of Foreman's books had the exact same issue with the left
margin, as well as the same paper quality as this KDP print. Let's call it a draw; I am probably just being a nitpicker here, or perhaps I simply expected 90g paper instead of 75g.
My conclusion about the book:
The language used by the author is very easy to understand. He doesn't use any Shakespearean words, perhaps because he is not a native English speaker himself.
The entire flow of the text feels like being with a friend who is explaining his job to you, clearly, using simple words.
This makes the book feel like "Aerodynamics for Dummies" in addition to being a book about the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt. It is incredibly easy for non-native English speakers to fully grasp the content.
This book will teach the reader a lot about both airplanes that most of us don't know, and it will change how you view them after 80 years of propaganda and brainwashing by generic books (and official historians) that just repeat the same things year after year using different words.
I am very eager to read Volume 2 when it is finished, as Mr. Jonsson's approach to aircraft performance is incredibly refreshing and sets the record straight.
I hope that future combat flight simulator developers will take a serious look at this book so they don't repeat the same mistakes that have been made since the release of the first "good" flight sims in the late '90s.
If you are a WWII aviation enthusiast (well, you're here, so there is a great chance you are) or a simmer, do not hesitate to buy this book. It is truly worth every cent.
You can find the book on Amazon via the following links.
