Customer Reviews

Military Aircraft of the Cold War (The Aviation Factfile)

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

 

 

Really excellent book with interesting format of facts and pictures plus comparisons to other similar aircraft. Unique. A true value and very addictive to read. Includes mostly color photos reproduced in high detail quality! Lots of fun facts and history, really a great book, I plan on getting more in the series. Aircraft (and helicopters) have 2 page gatefold, nice side view and either front or top view paintings, data sheet, and very cool weapons delivery side bar drawings as well as development, stories from Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War etc. Pictures are outstanding and show all types of livery from all over the world including anniversary painted craft, and aerobatic military schemes- very well done. Simply one of the most interesting formats I've seen. Buy it, enjoy it and get the rest in the series, I am!

The good:
- Covers a time gap that most books neglects.
- Color illustrations are very good and along with the photos show various schemes and in some cases schemes from various users.
- The presentation is good and illustrative. It won't bore you with excessive text.
The bad:
- As is typical of this series of books the information is far from extensive and sometimes suspicious. I'm pretty sure of sometimes it's inaccurate.
- The book is far from extensive. Many aircraft are nowhere to be found (Strikemaster, Vampire, Seasprite, Mi-2, Mi-4 to name a few). If you want an encyclopedia this is not it.

Bottom line: Fun to read and look at. Not a trusty reference.
Note: I also own "Modern Military Aircraft (The Aviation Factfile)".

The artwork for each of the aircraft and helicopters are excellent. Two pages for each aircraft and helicopter are covered. In the case of the F-4 Phantom II, there are 3 varients on 6 pages. Color photos are included. It's an excellent picture book, but it has interesting information about some of the aircraft.

Sadly, the book excludes some famous aircraft. They are the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon, RA5C Vigilante, XB-70 Valkarie, YB-35 and YB-47 Flying Wings, Mig-31 and a few other famous aircraft from the Cold War. Most people from western and eastern nations have seen most of the aircraft listed above. They might not know the names, but these planes are in films, documentaries, and books. To exclude them from this book makes no sense. The F-14 Tomcat is included and it's from the same time period as the F-15 Eagle.

There are errors in the dimensions of a few planes. For example, the large Tu-22 Soviet bomber's length and height are listed as the same,(35 feet). Even though the bomber is very long, it's listed only as 35 feet! It's correct length is 136.5 feet and correct height is 33 feet.

The book has different fonts. Most of them are small (10 or less) and are not in bold print. This makes the book very hard to read.