The VS 44 was and is an under-appreciated plane.In the late 30's, it lost out to the far inferior Consolidated Coranado for the Navy contract for a patrol bomber, mainly because Consolidated had more military experience. When the Navy realized it needed flying boat transports, they again chose the Coranado, even though Sikorsky had more long range transport experience. Pan Am passed it over for the larger, but shorter ranged, Boeing B314. It was ressurected by American Overseas Airline buying 3 in 1941. During 1941-1942, it was the only plane that could fly the Atlantic,loaded, nonstop in both directions. This book presents info on both the planes' history and the very fine restoration in the Bradley museum near Hartford CT. There is a table in the appendix that that lists the remarkable long range flights in the early 40's and another that comepares its load/range characteristics favorably to the B314. I wish the author had expanded on these tables, writing about the wind and load conditons for these long range flights, and whether the B314's larger volume compensated commercially for its weight/range limitations. Overall, this is a very fine book on an under utilized very fine Flying Boat. illustrated throughout
