The time following WWII was a remarkable time for military aviation. The development and combat use of the gas turbine engine had convinced everyone that this was the way of the future. Gone were spinning propellers to be replaced by even faster spinning turbine blades. The 'jet' engine promised airplanes that would fly higher and faster than their predecessors, and for the most part that was true. However, like everything new, there were tradeoffs. One was engine life, with time between overhaul often in the realm of 10-20 hours. The engines were quite fuel thirsty, despite running on less refined fuel. The engines had to be treated gingerly to get the best performance out of them. Thanks to their speed, it seemed the days of standard dog-fighting were over. Their speed also brought on technical and engineering situations not found in reciprocating engine aircraft.

Naturally, the first planes to be developed with turbine power were the smaller ones and in the military, that meant fighters. It was important for fighters to be able to not only quickly catch enemy bombers, but to be able to engage successfully with any escorting fighters.

Since the Soviet Union never developed any sort of wartime jet aircraft aside from a few unsuccessful rocket versions, their engineers quickly assimilated everything they could steal from German engineers and their notes and extant materiel. It is no surprise that many early Soviet jet fighters initially flew using Jumo and BMW engines or copies of them. Even several designs were highly reminiscent of successful German planes and flyoffs of Soviet prototypes were flown against Me-262s and He-162s.

Perhaps it is something that can only happen in a tyrannical dictatorship, but it surprised me how quickly prototype and even production aircraft  were developed. Sometimes it was less than a few months between concept and first flight. Other times, prototypes were built and never flown as it was realized it could not be better than what was there. This was especially the case after the MiG-15 (a plane not covered in this volume) was flown and entered production.

The book is divided into sections according to manufacturer. It includes not only actual types, but also proposals and those that reached production. Technology was changing so fast that even production planes did not have a long production run or service life and even promising prototypes that passed State Trials and were recommended for production were never produced.

The book sections are on Mikoyan, Yakovlev, Lavochkin, Sukhoi and the aircraft of Simon Alekseyev. I found each of these sections to be fascinating reading. I knew next to nothing about the MiG-9, which was the USSR's first production jet fighter and not much more about the family of Yaks that were developed from the Yak-3. I enjoyed reading about the nearly successful La-15 and the interesting prototypes of Sukhoi and Aleksyev. As you might guess, Yakovlev has by far the largest section in the book as his design bureau was quite prolific.

Each aircraft is completely covered including not only the usual development story and specs, but also the trials and tribultions of production and all of the various test airplanes used to try different systems and configurations. All of this is superbly enhanced by a bevy of clear, crisp photos of these planes and some most welcome color profiles.

In all, it makes for a must have book for the Soviet jet enthusiast or anyone interested in the early days of jet propulsion. Most highly recommended.

July 20141

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