Convair

I admit i am a sucker for an old jetliner with four podded engines under the wing, as God intended. Nowadays, of course you don't see such exotica around (apart from the odd DC-8, mostly around the Caribbean) though i do remember seeing the occasional 707 going into Birmingham Airport in my youth.

My favourite four engine jetliner however, wasn't a Boeing or Douglas job, it wasn't even a jetliner i have ever seen in real life. It was the Convair CV-880, the mostly unsuccessful competitor to the 707 and DC-8, which sold in the tens instead of the hundreds like it's competitors. This excellent book by Martyn Chorlton covers the CV-880, it's bigger brother the CV-990 plus a load of military types such as the F-106 and the bad-ass B-58 Hustler.

Convair built some excellent looking aircraft, the company being born out of the merger of Consolidated and Vultee Aircraft. Unfortunately, the company name died in the early 1990s but they had a great legacy including the Atlas rocket which carried the first American astronaut into orbit, and of course the CV-880.

A very well illustrated and written little book.