Customer Reviews

Cockpits of the Cold War

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I build model aircraft. I'd heard very good reports about this book so ordered it online sight unseen. The good news: it is a beautiful coffee table book. The bad news: it does not live up to its title. Yes, there are photos of cockpits, but generally only of instrument panels with some to no other cockpit details shown. Cockpit sides? Mostly missing. Pilot seats? None. Overhead panels? None for aircraft that have them. Obviously, the photographer (and perhaps the author) traveled extensively to gather the photos. With all the time and travel spent on photography, why is there only one photograph of the "cockpit"? Why are pages take up for photos of the subject aircraft where there should be photos of the cockpit sides, pilot seats, and overhead panels when present? The pilot comments are nice to read, but what use are they for cockpit research? My opinion is, the book title is misleading and buying it was a waste of my money. My suggestion is, if you're researching cockpits for modeling (or for some other reason) stick with books and web sites that are comprehensive on the specific aircraft of your interest.

So many "coffee-table" aviation books are written by clueless historians who know nothing of a pilot's actual experience in the air: the smell of oil and gas, the heft and feel of the controls, the view through the canopy. Nijboer and Patterson capture these sensations perfectly in this collection of crisp color portaits of cold war cockpits. Every cockpit is shot in dramatic but clear lighting, and accompanied by a detailed map of every knob, dial, and guage. If that's all the book delivered, it would be enough. But there's much more.

The authors commissioned a pilot's retrospective for each aircraft -- priceless first-hand accounts by the men who were flew these machines day in and day out. To find this kind of attentive description for just one airplane would be a treasure; Nijboer and Patterson have found dozens of them.

The cockpit vignettes are interwoven with the author's own historical notes and background photos. The result is a broad and deep view into cold-war aircraft and the men who flew them.

I like to read a new aircraft every night before sleeping, in the hope that I'll fly that aircraft in my dreams. And I have. And I will. There are lots of airplanes here.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has a fasination of airplanes and especially cockpits. I also have Don Nijboer amd Dan Patterson's other books Cockpit and Gunner, which is one of the main reasons why I purchased this book. And, this book is of the same high quality. The photographs of the cockpits are sharp and clear with excellent details and descriptions. Nijboer and Patterson also include many other excellent photographs, both color and black and white, of aircraft in flight and on the ground. Aircraft depicted include, fighter, bomber, and reconnaissance. One thing I found extremely interesting is the "pilot's perspective" of what it was like to fly that particular aircraft, including the pilots thoughts on roominess and comfort, instrument placement, and aircraft handling. I also found it quite interesting to compare the cockpit/instrument layout of American aircraft verses those of the UK, France, Russia, Canada, and the Swiss. Again an excellent book by Nijboer and Patterson and highly recommended for anyone's library.