The Clouds Remember The Aeroplanes of World War I

The man who wrote the text (Oliver Stewart) that accompanies Leonard Bridgeman's sketches was himself a WWI pilot. He seems to have flown almost all the planes in the book. He includes tidbits like whether a plane was noisy, if it spattered you with oil, if it was warm in the cockpit or drafty, whether it was a joy to fly or not.
By the facts he chooses to include you begin to understand what a WWI pilot was looking for in a plane: visibility, predictable handling, well placed armament, etc. When he doesn't like a plane, he tells you exactly why.