Customer Reviews

Designed for the Kill: The Jet Fighter, Development & Experience

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Mike Spick has been writing about modern air combat for some years and the experience shows. He covers the development of modern jet fighters introduced or in development from the 1970s onward, the "post-Phantom" generation. If you are interested in air-to-air combat, this is recommended. With two caveats, however. One, have some background in either flying or engineering, as the author assumes a certain basic knowledge of both. Secondly, don't expect abbreviations to be explained the first, or even second time they are used. For example, "sfc" (for "specific fuel consumption") isn't explained until two chapters after its first appearance. Also, expect a number of Britishisms that are simply mystifying to any Yanks who may be reading.

I have been reading books on combat planes since I was a kid. I even have a tattered 1983 edition of Mike Spick's Modern Air Combat on my book shelf. But I rate Designed for the Kill as the best consumer-level combat aviation book on my shelves (I have an older copy of Jane's All the World's Aircraft and it would take quite a bit to knock that off as the king of aviation book). While other books have raw data on combat aircraft - maximum airspeeds, maximum range, maximum bombload - this book goes beyond that to provide evaluative criteria and analysis on what modern warplanes can really do. By looking at what makes a good fighter and all the tradeoffs involved this book lets normal people (like me) look into the design process and understand why some planes are better than others. Though a few years old now - the F-22 had just been selected and the JSF/F-35 was just a gleem in the eye - it is still the best book in the consumer market for learning about most modern airplanes. I highly recommend it.

This is a very good book for people do not have a lot of technical background to understand the key factors of modern jet fighters. This book provides history and development history of almost all trends of jet fighters from the earlier age to the current time. Althought some of the information like Stealthy is available after it published. This is no way to harm the value of this book.

For people would like to know how to compare the performance of modern fighters, this is a great place to start.