Customer Reviews

Air Wars and Aircraft: A Detailed Record of Air Combat, 1945 to the Present

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Flintham has produced the best one vol. overview of post WWII air war up to 1990. The detailed text is supplemented by many interesting b/w photos, maps, and orders of battle. He puts well known conflicts like Yom Kippur and Vietnam in context by including the numerous smaller clashes like the Greek Civil and the Netherlands East Indies war. Nothing seems to be left out. He fills the book with facts and numbers and allows the reader do the evaluation.

This book is the military aviation version of "trainspotting," in which enthusiasts attempt to make an exhaustive record of all the passings of their chosen mode of fascination. To many readers, post war military aviation CAN be fascinating, especially when it comes to tracking the afterlife of World War II's famous aircraft as they toiled on as second-hand warriors in the obscure brush wars of the 1950s and 60s. The author attempted to provide a nearly complete description of post-1945 air power. This is an ambitious goal as it includes large-scale wars (Korea, Vietnam, and various India-Pakistan and Arab-Israeli conflicts), the insidious conflicts (Red vs. Nationalist Chinese over the Formosa Straits, The Falklands, and the 1969 Soccer War), and the many preposterous insurgencies of Africa, the East Indies, and Latin America. A lot has transpired since the publication date (1990), so perhaps an update is in order. Photos are scant and of fair to poor quality. Technical notes, which give narrative descriptions of aircraft insignia and markings, are probably intended for scale modellers. Color illustrations would have been far more effective. But, if you just have to know the "who's who" of obscure air warfare, this book is a pretty good chronicle.

Extensive but not exhaustive review of the participation of aircraft in military conflicts after WWII. A good historical reference source. Contains a good list of references but very poor photograph records.