Lou Drendel is a world-renowned aviation artist. His paintings have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Time-Life Publications, Berkely Books, The Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society, EAA Warbirds Magazine, and in the 60+ books he has authored on military aviation for Squadron/Signal Publications and for ARCO Publishers. He has also authored and published “The Lima Lima Flight Team: The Life and Times of the World’s First Civilian six-Ship Formation Aerobatic Team”, and several eBooks in "The Illustrated Series" on military aircraft. Lou is a founding member of the famous Lima Lima Flight Team, where he flew both leadership positions. (Team Lead and Solo Lead.) He has logged over 3,900 hours in the T-34 Mentor and served as president of the national T-34 Association. He is a Life Member of EAA and a former director of the EAA Warbirds of America. His “Flyers Series” of paintings for American Flyers website celebrates famous aviators and famous aircraft. He is the current historian of the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association aka: "River Rats". His own website www.aviation-art.net features a wide variety of aircraft paintings, reflecting almost 50 years of work. Lou and wife Carol live in Venice, Florida.
The Illustrated Series
The Illustrated series of military aircraft was created to continue a format which I had used successfully in publishing over 40 “In Action” books for Squadron/Signal Publications. That series had been created to showcase operational details of the aircraft, and in spite of the name of the series, did not usually include personal narratives from the pilots who flew those airplanes. In a departure from that format, Jerry Campbell, the original publisher, allowed me to include those narratives, and when the personal narratives sections threatened to overwhelm the “nuts and bolts” aspect, he created a whole new series of books, which he entitled “Modern Military Aircraft” and “Vietnam Studies”, which included best sellers like “…..And Kill Migs!”.
Jerry Campbell sold Squadron/Signal and retired several years ago. The new owners of Squadron/Signal have gradually changed the format to “picture books” which minimize text, while attempting to tell the story with photo captions. I have always tried to adapt to the wishes of the publisher. (I forsook my new, and very expensive, IBM Selectric Typewriter when Jerry insisted I begin writing on an Apple II Computer.) However, this latest adaptation goes against my basic instinct for telling the story.
I have never forgotten what my first publisher, Len Morgan once said when advising me on style. He said; “People want to read about people.” So, in a case of history repeating itself, the “Illustrated Series” will not just be “nuts and bolts”, but, hopefully, will include many narratives from those who were intimately involved with the airplane, as pilots, designers, or maintainers.
The print format established for the “In Action” books was landscape, which seemed ideally suited for publishing aircraft pictures, since airplanes are usually shown in profile. My initial “Illustrated Series” books copied this format, and were published as eBooks, on both the iBooks and Kindle online book stores. Amazon.com, the Kindle publisher, now will do print books (paperbacks) on demand, which means no inventory for the publisher. Their print quality has so far been proven to be very good, rivaling that which is put out by traditional print publishers. Unfortunately, they do not support landscape format, so my print Illustrated Series books will be done in portrait format.
