Some military aircraft have developed such a fan base that there will never be a shortage of book titles about them. Spitfire, Mustang, Bf 109, Phantom, Tomcat: there are dozens of books that keep appearing about these classic combat aircraft. I can pretty much guarantee that "Remembering an Unsung Giant", a book about the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, will be the only book about this groundbreaking airlifter. This book is nothing short of a labor of love by former C-133 navigator Cal Taylor to preserve some memory of this fairly short-lived aircraft.

Published in 2005 by Firstfleet Publishers, "Remembering an Unsung Giant" is a sizable 420-page work divided into 24 numbered chapters, a bibliography, and an index. The first chapter is a worthwhile review of the development of strategic airlift in the U.S. Air Force after World War II, a development that led to the requirements for the C-133. The second chapter details the Air Force's first experience with turboprop transports. The next five chapters go technical with descriptions of aircraft development, specifications, and the technology that went into the Cargomaster.

Starting with Chapter 8, the reader meets the heart and soul of this book--the crew experiences with the aircraft. The C-133 was groundbreaking in terms of its size and the systems that had to be established to load/unload its cargo. That accomplishment, however, came at a significant cost in reliability and flight safety--a cost paid by flight and maintenance crews. Some chapters to highlight are Chapter 10, which dealt with the hellish maintenance demands of the C-133; Chapter 11, which speaks to the varied loads carried by this epic aircraft; Chapter 16, which talks about the C-133's involvement in the Vietnam War; and Chapter 19, which details the accidents that eliminated 20% of the C-133 fleet and killed more than 60 airmen. The book is richly illustrated with a large number of photographs, including a small section in color, that Taylor obtained from former aircraft crewmen. The author also provides fold-out drawings that appear to have come from various Cargomaster technical manuals.

"Hanger flights" is a term Taylor uses to describe the stories passed along by generations of airmen about their service experience--for sailors the same goes by the term "sea stories". Cal provides us with a precious examples of his hanger flights and those of his fellow airmen. The Cargomaster exists now in only a handful of aviation museums around the country, and as the years pass it will become more and more difficult to find anyone alive with any experience with this aircraft that set the stage for modern USAF airlift practices. While the book can be repetitious at times, the flaws do not outweight the opportunity to capture a bit of perishable aviation experience. ( )