****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
A great comprehensive reference, full of wonderful photographs.I recently purchased a copy of the 2013 English-language edition of the book "Dornier Do X," by Volker Behr. The extensive original photos and other illustrations are fantastic and worth the price of the book, but it's disappointing that the original German text was apparently computer translated, without a native English speaker ever reviewing and correcting thousands of errors in sentence structure, verb tense, usage, etc. I nevertheless would still recommend the book to those who, like me, are fascinated by this extraordinary aircraft and/or the (late 1920s - WWII) "Golden Age" of flying boats in general.There is good and bad news here as the three-star rating indicatesOn the positive side, this is the first English-language book devoted to the amazing and huge (for its time--1929) flying boat. There are some excellent photos--some in color--helping to illustrate how the aircraft was constructed, operated, and furnished (with pages showing the on-board special dishes and glassware designed especially for the "ship"). Some attention is paid to the all-but-forgotten two Italian boats that followed the famous original. And the text makes reference to many documents and other records that have only recently come to light.On the other hand this translation of a German-language original volume from 2011 shows all to clearly the drawbacks of software-translated works. It desperately needed a human editor to bring the English to a comfortable level of tense and word use. Past and present tense are even mixed up within the same paragraph. Physically, in too many places, lines of text run together without any inter-word spacing. Put plainly, this can be a chore to read.More's the pity given the importance of the Do-X in aviation history. For the price, Schiffer could have expended a bit more effort and produced a really top-notch effort. Bottom line: buy this for the photos and captions--and struggle through the main text as best you can.A splendid book, full of fascinating pictures and detailed descriptions of the construction and operation of these amazing flying boats. The only minor quibble is that the English text, understood to be translated electronically from the German, is occasionally imprecise or ungrammatical.But overall, this is an outstanding book.excellent. best on the do. x so far, and in English. book answers a lot of questions and clarifies a lot through good clear photo's.as a modeller I would highly recommend this title.excellentVery good,Quality throughout - Photography, presentation, research all excellent - Superb.
