Customer Reviews

Collins/Jane's Combat Aircraft (Collins Pocket Guide)

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I found this Collins/Jane's Pocket Guide to be very disappointing. The reason for this is its lack of organization. In fact, it is only organized alphabetically- while this may be handy enough at an air show, it is bloody worthless in the field. You have to know what company manufactured an aircraft before you can even begin to look it up- apart from random flipping.

Now, the companion Collins/Jane's volume MODERN TANKS is extremely well organized (first by type- main battle tank, armoured car, armoured personnel carrier, then by nationality, and finally by the date that it entered service.) By contrast this volume doesn't even separate aircraft by fixed or rotary wing! I realise that this is the age of multi-role aircraft but couldn't they even separate entries by air superiority, ground attack, sea control, and then rotary wing? Then they could also have organized at least around nationality within these larger catagories.

One other major disappointment is that they do not even include RANGE in the performance specs. A minority of entries do include an endurance figure in hours, but only a minority.

I got the distinct impression that while a great deal of thought went into MODERN TANKS, this volume on COMBAT AIRCRAFT was slapped together with little thought at all.

This is a handy reference to have when reading tales of aviation adventure in WW2. The book itself is small, smaller than those yellow 'used-car value' books, and because of its lack of size it doesn't go into the variants of any particular airplane. What you get is 3 paragraphs of text about a plane, a photograph so you can visualize the plane, and a list of technical specifications such as engine, armament, rate of climb, etc. On the upside, just about every airplane is listed, including those used in the Spanish Civil War. On the downside, you don't get too much depth about each airplane's sub-variants. I feel that if they had made the book itself a bit larger, Jane's would have been able to include a lot more material. Still, there's enough information there to make you feel comfortable with the airplane type and allows you to understand whatever passage you were reading in the WW2 story that prompted you to refer back to this book in the first place.

This is a great book for the person that loves aircraft but doesn't want to carry around a ten pound book. It has a picture of every aircraft it describes. There is two full pages dedicated to each aircraft. All in all it is nice and handy book to have around.

Combat Aircraft is a great book.It was one of the first military reference books that I bought.It works great at air shows or just to thumb through it in your spare time(which I like to do).It fits nicely in your pocket and still has the quality of the big books.If you want to look up a bomber,helecopter,or a fighter this is a real handy book.