The Great Book Of Modern Warplanes

by Bill Gunston

This massive volume presents the most accurate, up-to-date, and highly illustrated descriptions of todays warplanes. The majority of the aircraft featured have been battle-tested in the skies over Iraq and the Balkans. The remainder are either currently being flight-tested or are ready for production.

Genres: Military Fiction

648 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1988

About the author

Bill Gunston was a British aviation and military author. He flew with Britain's Royal Air Force from 1945 to 1948, and after pilot training became a flying instructor. He spent most of his adult life doing research and writing on aircraft and aviation. He was the author of over 350 books and articles. His work included many books published by Salamander Books.

Reviews

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Book of Modern Warplanes is a 1987 publication which takes a detailed look at a small number of key warplanes in service at the time of print. In 648 pages it covers 9 North American types, plus an additional chapter covering several Soviet types. There are several contibutors including Bill Sweetman, Michael J Gething, Doug Richardson, Mike Spick and Bill Gunston – all have great aviation journalist credentials, and each has his own little quirks. Each chapter is, therefore, nearly 65 pages long on average allowing an in depth coverage of each type. This is usually broken down into sections covering Development, Structure, Powerplant, Weapons, Avionics and Deployment. This results in a small amount of duplication – for example both the F-15 and the F-16 use the P&W F100 powerplant – but the differences in approach by different journalists as well as the differences in the manner of the installation solves this. The introduction gives the unfair impression that this is going to be a simplistic celebration of the superiority of US technology, whilst casting disparaging comments and opinions on Soviet technology – the chapters themselves are actually incredibly well detailed and illustrated, and often discuss at length the contentious background of US procurement practices. Brilliant.