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Air Fighters Book
Ah, yes, the heart of the matter. A classic
example of marketing apparently gone very,
very wrong. Although details are quite
sketchy, it appears the impetus (or a least
a very thinly disguised perk) for creating
the American Heritage games was to market
the American Heritage History of Flight
(a “major
book”), as well as the American Heritage
Junior Library books for younger readers.
I’ve never seen the
History of Flight, or a set of these pre-Internet
(by decades) volumes, but the little Air
Fighters book must have been an attractive
draw — at
least to kids willing to write to Great
Neck, New York to obtain more information.
As a young Dogfight player,
I read the Air Fighters book dozens of
times, and despite its inaccuracies, it
was well written in classic pulp style
and tastefully illustrated. The only thing
missing was a hint of sex, which could
have been snuck by the censors in the form
of a provocative enlistment poster of the
era, or perhaps a personal insignia on
the side of a plane. Unfortunately, the “pitch” to
would be purchasers of the Junior Library
was on the back cover of the booklet, which
I never bothered to look at, nor can I
ever remember having an interest in obtaining
more information about them.
The Air Fighters
booklet was issued in two versions, differing
only in their back cover. The original
version (from 1962-63) has three paragraphs
on the back cover, and is designed with
adequate white space. The Re-issue version
(1976) includes an additional paragraph
in the middle section dedicated to listing
the Command Decision game titles, which
crowds the typeset a bit. Apparently a
better marketing team at Milton Bradley
realized that kids were inherently more
interested in trying other games than just
writing for information about a book.
As
an aside, the description of the American
Heritage History of Flight is unchanged
between the intervening 13 years, to wit: “a
comprehensive illustrated history of aviation,
from man’s first myths of flight
to spacecraft launching of our own day”.
One wonders if they updated it to include
anything about actually landing on the
moon, or if they were still trying to peddle
the 1963 backstock.
A great little booklet
in its own right, the original Air Fighters
is offered at $15.00, and the re-issue
version is offered at $12.00.
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