MARCEL BLOCH AIRCRAFT - Volume 1: Early Successes

Among all the great French aircraft manufacturers, Marcel Bloch is one of the least well known, as are his aircraft. It is time to fill an important gap and present his productions, which left their mark from the 1930s through to the Second World War. How, by applying a policy of small steps and always building on his previous experience — good and bad alike — he became one of the greatest aircraft manufacturers in the world.

Always focused on the future and dismissive of the past, having become Marcel Dassault after the Liberation, he left few traces of his early achievements, successes and failures alike.

To reconstruct this history, it was necessary to seek out a great many fragmentary sources and piece together the sequence of events by cross-referencing scattered scraps of information. This painstaking work of reconstruction, carried out by the author over many years, finally makes it possible to shed light on aircraft stories that remain little known, even regarding his most prominent designs.

The history of the Marcel Bloch aircraft is complex, full of contradictions and reversals. If you think you know it well, you are mistaken! Discover a different vision of aviation history at the dawn of the war, with its controversies, its attempts, its projects, its achievements, its failures, its recoveries and its sometimes spectacular successes.

This first volume totals 512 pages, 1,077 photographs, 94 plans and drawings, and 54 colour profiles!