Soviet X-Planes [Paperback]

E. Gordon (Author), Bill Sweetman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

This is the first book to collect stories of the most important Soviet aircraft, including experimental machines from the early 1900s through to the latest Russian prototypes of today. About 150 types are described, each with data and many with extensive drawings.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879384980
• ISBN-13: 978-0879384982
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,091,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Soviet X-planes by Yefim Gordon and Bill Sweetman, May 26, 2000

By 

Dilip Susruta Samarasinghe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soviet X-Planes (Paperback)

I found the book an extremely interesting study of Soviet experimental aircraft and prototypes. Though dozens of Soviet aircraft types were built, a policy of secrecy surrounded all new aircraft types. It is not a book with very much text but more of a collection of photographs from Soviet archives. Many of these were shown for the first time and the earliest machines go back to the early 1930's. Among the interesting types featured are "Mother Ships", the "Caspian Sea Monster" and high Altitude aircraft. It also reveals a lot of information on the extent to which Nazi technology was tranferred to the Soviet Union contributing to make that country a leader in aerospce. I found "X-Planes " a very interesting book and have no regret buying it, though more books on this subject have followed since it came out.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unique yet dissappointing untold history of Red Aviation, March 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: SOVIET X-PLANES (Hardcover)

On the plus side, this is almost as comprehensive a book as you can find that goes between the cracks of Soviet aviation development, turning up all sorts of interesting machines. Unfortunately, this is also as comprehensive a book as you can find given that cold war security strictures have made it hard to get the crucial bits of information. We should be happy that we can even get such information about airplanes like the Sukhoi supersonic bomber obviously patterned on the American B-70, or the family of airplanes which bore and then descended from the MiG-21 (including one using a rectangular chin inlet and canards making it a dead-ringer for the Eurofighter Typhoon, but preceding that plane by about 25 years). Though the book offers much information that you would not have seen found, the gaps are conspicuous. The book is not without avoidable flaws notwithstanding the unavailability of information: the structure is all wrong, giving each plane its own little section and going by alphabet, rather than crafting all the information into a single historical narrative that could have offered clues into the missing history. (There are two reasons I can think of to explain why there are no pictures of a promising prototype in flight, or why the prototype itself can't be found: either the first flight went off badly, or the plane was never built at all.) By describing each plane as if in a vacuum, the author cuts away, most of its story. Military hardware historians know that the story of one warplane frequently includes the story of another - the B-70 including the story of the B-52 and the U-2; the F-111 interdependent with the F-14; The F-86 and the MiG-17 - so it makes no sense to devote single sections to one airplane or a family of planes. Also, the author gives no dimension to the Soviet acquisitions process that determined which planes would get huge production contracts and which would remain just one-shot test-beds. (The Soviet experimented with the tailless delta design in their Tu-144 airliner, even going to the point of modifying a MiG-21 with a tailless delta as a flying subscale analog, but never went that much farther - why not?) And none of the narrative describes what it was like to fly these beasts. Still in all, a book of some great and overlooked history and some great pictures to go with them.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Proof that there is a thing as too much of a good thing...., June 3, 2005

By 

A. G. Corwin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SOVIET X-PLANES (Hardcover)

I wanted to like this book. I was seduced by the S-37/47 Berkut on the cover, and imagined the book to be filled with exotic designs that marveled the mind and that each would have a fascinating story to tell about the hows and whys and why nots. There is that, once you seperate the fascinating from the not.

This book is full. I mean so full that it becomes repetitive and monotonous and I am an aviation enthusiast. The level of detail is impressive, with design ranging from the creative to the absurd. In compiling this level of detail, the authors are to be commended. But I feel that the book would have been so much better had the book focused on 30 of the most intriguing designs and told that story, rather than the 120-odd designs.

I would buy this used, because it does make for interesting reading, and the aviation enthusiast will enjoy parts, but probably not the whole. For me, I always enjoyed the Myasishschev designs for their unique grace.