Fond and Fun Look Back at the Dawn of the Jet Age
Skyliners 2 continues where the first volume of its namesake left off, beyond the shores of North America. Hamlin and Lawrence take the reader on an enjoyable voyage across the Atlantic, first to London's Heathrow, followed by Paris, Rome, and other European cities. Each stop offers an amazing variety of late piston and turboprop and early jet passenger aircraft, ranging from the familiar Boeing 707 and DC-8 to more obscure birds, such as the Breguet 763 Provence (a double deck airliner built in France some three decades before the mighty A380). Some shots are rare, such as one of a Panair do Brasil DC-8 that came to grief only a little over a year after the photo was taken. The final part of the book takes us to various destinations in South America, with equally interesting aircraft and liveries, most notably a Saab Scania of VASP.
The photos are generally of good quality and well reproduced. The short captions are entertaining, even if they do not have a great deal of substance. What makes this book worth the money is that it offers a seldom seen glimpse to the late 1950s and early 1960s, one rarely seen in such a high-quality format.
