Magnesium Overcast : The Story of the Convair B-36

by Dennis R. Jenkins

Published by Specialty Press

Reviewed by Steve Jantscher

As I said in a recent review of the Hobby Craft GRB-36 model kit, I've been a B-36 nut for a long time. I'm always looking for whatever I can find on the "Big Stick", the B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber. As such I was determined to check out this book after I heard about it last year. I already had the big Schiffer B-36 book, Convair B36 by Meyers K. Jacobsen, so I really was looking to see if I needed another book on the B-36, and how much of this new book would duplicate what was in the Schiffer book. To make a long story short, I bought Magnesium Overcast, and haven't regretted it since.

Magnesium Overcast is a 10x10 inch 256 page hard cover book printed on fine, high gloss paper. Photographs and line drawings abound (well over 400 black and white & 57 color photographs). There are also many many detailed diagrams taken sometimes right from the service or pilot's manuals. This is a perfect complement for the Schiffer book, which while larger, seems to deal more with the personal stories of the Big Stick in action, while 'Overcast deals with everything a modeler would like (still with a very healthy smattering of story telling and history).

I am so satisfied with this book in many respects. As I said, this is as close as we are likely going to get to the theoretical "perfect" resource for the modeler for this aircraft. There are just so many photographs of all components and so many different "whole plane" shots that there is not much about the plane that is not detailed in at least one photograph, and perhaps also in one or more of the many diagrams and drawings.

This is a must have book if you are at all interested in this aircraft. If you like the B-36, or just want to see what has got to be one of the best books of it's kind, buy Magnesium Overcast. You won't be sorry!