Author Steve Ginter is a noted military historian who publishes the Naval Fighter series that was founded in 1980. After graduating from California State University-Northridge, Ginter became a US Navy pilot, serving from 1966 to 1972. Upon leaving the US Navy, Ginter held a series of management positions within the Thrifty Drug chain for the next twenty-one years. In 1996, he became the CEO of Sentai Distributors, where he directed company operations until 2011.

Steve Ginter’s Loening Amphibian monograph is the latest in his Naval Fighters series. This edition is in their standard 8.5” x 11” format softbound publication that has 64 pages (excluding covers). The front cover features a sharp black and white photograph of the Loening OK-8A, BuNo A-7847, on December 14, 1928. Rear Admiral Henry Varnum Butler is sitting in the rear seat, accompanied by the Rear Admiral flag on the fuselage and outer wing strut. I counted 262 clear black and white photographs. You will also find nine tables along with 1 multi-view scale drawing.

Steve Ginter begins the book in 1911 when Grover Loening received the very first issued aeronautical engineering degree. Loening Aeronautical Engineering Corporation was founded in 1917 producing monoplanes. Unfortunately, monoplanes were frowned upon at the time, forcing Grover Loening to switch to biplane design. This led to the Amphibian series. The first in the Amphibian line was ordered by the US Army after an unsolicited proposal by Loening. The US Army supported it and placed it into production as the COA-1 as seen on Page 7. As bad as the COA-1 Amphibian at the top of the page looks after a water landing with the gear down, it was repaired and later participated in the aerial survey of Northern Luzon. The second and fourth photographs of COA-1 Amphibians show off the main landing gear retracted and extended. You can also spot the blast tube for the Browning .30-caliber machine gun on the upper right engine cowling.

A shift from the inverted liquid cooled V-12 engine to a Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp air cooled engine was introduced on the OL-8 Amphibian in 1928. A tailhook differentiated the OL-8A Amphibians that are depicted on Page 33. The OL-8A Amphibian at the bottom of the page is BuNo 8082 and was assigned to serve at Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone. The center OL-8A, BuNo A-8079, participated in the 1929 Alaskan aerial survey and is seen on the water in March 1930. One of four OL-8A Amphibians, this one was named for one of the four operating bases, Petersburg. Page 43 shows two more of the Alaskan aerial survey OL-8A Amphibians. The photograph at the bottom of the page shows ‘Sitka’, BuNo A-8076, being lifted over the side of the USS Gannet [AVP-8] at Petersburg, Alaska. The top photograph is an aerial view of the USS Gannet along with three of the OL-8A Amphibians in Juneau, Alaska. The center picture shows OL-8A ‘Ketchikan’, BuNo A-8078 receiving a twenty-hour engine check under cover of a tarp.

Loening merged with Keystone Aircraft Corporation in 1928 as the Keystone-Loening OL-9 was introduced with very minor equipment changes from the OL-8A Amphibian. Three batches, composing a total of twenty-six aircraft were produced from May 1931 through April 1932. Eight pages of detailed photographs of the Keystone-Loening OL-9 are presented with Page 50 being a good example. Here are crystal clear pictures of the pilot’s cockpit, the co-pilot’s cockpit, and the radio station that was below the pilot’s seat.

The Chapters include:

• Loening OL Amphibians
• The Airplane
• Loening XCOA-1 S/N 23-1234 Technical Data [Table 1]
• First Flight
• First Production Aircraft: S/N A.S. 24-8
• Loening COA-1 Technical Data [Table 2]
• Army COA-1 Deliveries and Operations [Page 07]
• The Navy Orders Two OL-1 Aircraft
• The OL-2 and Richard E. Byrd and the 1925 MacMillan Artic Expedition
• The OL-3 and OL-4
• Navy Aerial Surveys of 1925 Venezuela
• First Alaskan Air Survey
• U.S. Coast Guard OL-5s
• Loening OL-5 Technical Data [Table 3]
• OA-1A and the Army’s Historic Pan-American Goodwill Flight of 1926 and 1927
• 1926-1927 Army Pan-American Aerial Survey OA-1A “San Francisco” – [Scale Drawings]
• Army OA-1A, OA-1B and OA-1C
• The German East-To-West Atlantic Crossing Attempt
• The Army’s 1926 Northern Luzon Survey
• XOA-1A / XO-10 / OA-2
• Loening OA-2 Technical Data [Table 4]
• Navy OL-6 Amphibians
• OL-6 Ship Operations
• Folding Wing OL-7
• OL-8
• OL-8 Operations
• The Loening OL-8A and the Keystone-Loening OL-9 [Page 33]
• Loening OL-8, OL-8A, OL-9 Technical Data [Table 5]
• The 1929 Alaskan Survey [Page 43]
• 1929 Alaskan Aerial Survey Landscape Photos
• 1932 Alaskan Survey Expedition
• Loening OL-9 Interior 1931 [Detail Photos] [Page 50]
• Loening OL-9 Technical Data [Table 6]
• XHL Air Ambulances
• Loening / Keystone XO2L Amphibian Follow-On Aircraft
• Technical Data XO2L-1 [Table 7]
• Loening / Keystone XO2L Amphibian [Detail Photos]
• Scale Models
• 1/72 Scale Esoteric Loening Amphibian Vacuformed Kits
• OA-1A
• OL-6
• OL-8 / 9
• Pro Resin Loening OA-1A Amphibian “San Francisco”
• Contributors
• XS2L-1
• Technical Data XS2L-1 [Table 8]
• XOA-10
• Loening XO-10 Technical Data [Table 9]

The sole surviving Amphibian is currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. The Loening OA-1A ‘San Francisco’ [S/N AC-26-431] took part in the 1926-1927 Pan American Goodwill flight before being donated to the Smithsonian in 1927. The Loening Amphibian has been issued in 1/72 scale with your choice of vacuformed or resin-multimedia kits. These are addressed in the Scale Models section of this book.

I was able to read Steve Ginter’s monograph over two days. The text is well supplemented with very clear photographs with good captions. This is a nice reference on the Loening Amphibians and would be a handy addition to your reference library. If you are building any of the above model kits, I would consider this edition essential to your build. If you own any of the previous releases in the Ginter Naval Fighter series, you know what you are getting. If this is your initial entry into this series, you will be quite pleased.

My thanks to David Doyle Books, Steve Ginter, and IPMS/USA for the chance to review this great monograph.

Highly recommended!