Fighters of the fifties

by Bill Gunston

1950s military aircraft.

248 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

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 Bagnall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuck me, you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with him, would you? You can almost smell the anorak - you don’t want to get your J57 mixed up with your J75, do you? There’ll be an exam afterwards. How many stars you give this really depends on what you expect. Personally, I would have preferred less technical detail and more of the most obscure and barmpot designs, including the ones that never lifted off from the drawing board.

I’ve seen some reviews objecting to Gunston’s personal viewpoint filtering into the text; I welcome this added colour. There’s a fascinating subtext here about how Britain led the way in the late 40s (US & Russian jet engines were all licence-built British designs) but Duncan Sandys specifically and British small-mindedness generally had thrown it all away a decade later.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1981, Fighters of the Fifties gives short but concise overviews of the development of 65 fighter aircraft, supported by over 165 monochrome photographs. The monographs are arranged in order of principal manufacturer, and in order of development within manufacturers. The text is throughout skewed by Gunstons opinions of political decisions made at the time concerning fighter projects in the west, a common factor in some of his books.