Customer Reviews

Tupolev Tu-95 Bear - Warbird Tech Vol. 43

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

 

 

If you've wondered what it was like during the Cold War when the "Old Soviet Union" flew up and the around the USA and our carrier fleet, you've got the check out this book! It presents everything you wanted to know about the Tu-95 & Tu-142 Bear Bomber! What the B-52 Buff is to the USAF, the Bear is to Russia, with every make & model that was produced.
USAF & USN fighter pilots will enjoy reading about this beast of a aircraft from there days of intercepting this leviathan,and still do to this day. I highly recommend this book to the model builder to make sure they get there model looking good.

The books in the WarbirdTech series have been quite good. This book is a fine history of the Tu-95 bear. It starts with a history of the evolution of the Bear from the Boeing B-29 to the Tu-4 (B-29ski), the Tu-80 and the Tu-90 to the Bear. Each variant is described and for the most part pictured in this well illustrated book. There are many plan views.There is a very short section on a Tu-95 model kit. This is a great book for aviation history buffs and is most affordable.

Tu-95 Bear was built to carry the first Soviet Nuclear weapons after WW2. The design had to be huge to carry 20 tons and yet have a decent radius. What was created was the Bear (NATO Codename). It was a development of the Tu-4 (the Soviets literally created a B-29 by reverse engineering it). The Tu-95 is a very interesting looking plane, swept wings and counter rotating turbo props with long landing gear.

If you've seen Cold War aviation photos, especially of Naval fighters like the F-4 Phantom, this is the plane being intercepted and escorted away. The Tu-95 had many versions - recon, carrying cruise missles, anti sub warfare.

Authors Yefim Gordon and Peter Davison give a very detailed account of the development of each varient of the plane. Lots of clear B&W photos, line drawings and 8 pages of color photos help the reader trace the history of this elegant looking bird. One really nice twist - a chapter reviewing the different plastic models of the Tu-95 that are available.

Small things I did not like - the line drawings are small - big plane, hard to make larger & keep book affordable. Some of the captions are identical to the text which is wasted space. It does get dry reading sometimes. The section on operational history is redundant with previous chapters. These are the reasons why I took away one star.

I'd recommend this book for hard core aviation fans, especially of the Cold War era. Also good for modelers, folks who like reading about Soviet Aviation. Say what you want about a propeller driven airplane - it has passed the test of time.

I grew up in the mist of the cold war, and always there was the shadow of a big bad bear lurking in the horizon ready to strike any minute, times had changed fortunately, but I was always curious about this unique aicraft,and this excellent volume has given me a real deep insight at the nature of the Tu-95,a must have if you like red stars on wings¡¡

Good information about an airplane that is still testing our defenses 50 years after it was first manufactured.The book can be critized for spending too much time on describing the individual models rather on the airplane as a whole.