Brassey's Modern Fighters: The Ultimate Guide to In-Flight Tactics, Technology, Weapons, and Equipment Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a worthwhile book for those interested in modern military aviation. Covered here are 16 modern fighters in service - China's J-7 and J-8, Tornado, Mirage 2000, Su-27/35 family, Mig 29, Mig 31, Harrier/AV-8, Eurofighter, Rafael, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, Sweden's SAAB-39 Grippen, and Taiwan's IDF, and 4 aircraft in development stage: Sukhoi's S-37 Berkut, JSF's, and F-22. Curiously, among the more fascinating fighters still in development, 3 are not covered here: India's LCA, Japan's F-2, and Russia's Mig 1.44/MFI.
It discusses some newer technologies like stealth, unmanned combat vehicles, laser weapons, and thrust-vectoring (mentioning X-31). Fighter maneuvers and tactics are also covered. Mike Spick does a good job describing each integral part of a modern fighter plane, like the propulsion system, wing aspect ratio, ejection seats, radar, etc. There are nice photos. The charts comparing performances of aircraft are interesting.
The most obvious flaw of this book is very sloppy editing. Typos are abundant. There are some errors, some obviously accidental (e.g., it mentions that Taiwan started IDF development in 1992 -- but it should be 1982 -- in 1992 IDF was well in production and Taiwan had ordered F-16 and Mirage 2000).
Also I wished that Mike Spick could give more subjective views of the aircraft. For example, how is F-16 compared to F-18? Why would an airforce choose one over the other (e.g. Spain, Canada, and Australia all chose F-18 and no F-16). Although he dose give good opinions and comparisons when talking about the Su-27 family.
Overall, still a pretty good book.

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Brassey's Modern Fighters examines what makes a fighter successful.Using more than 240 detailed photographs and diagrams, Mike Spick gives the reader a detailed technical analysis of some of today's most potent military aircraft.From the Panavia Tornado F.3 to the new F-22 Joint Strike Fighter, explore the present and future of the modern fighter.

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