Once again, a superb book just cocked full of eye candy for the airliner enthusiast and those who are interested in Russian aircraft.

This particular book is a companion of sorts to their earlier one on Russian Airlines. There is a difference in approach, though as that edition covered all aircraft flown by those airlines. This one, however, concentrates on Russian built aircraft flown by various airlines around the world. As one might imagine, it is a pretty extensive listing and even more so with the break-up of the Soviet Union. Each of the new states basically kept those planes that were part of their regional Aeroflot districts. This not only gave them ready to go airlines, but in many cases repair facilities as well. Add to it that little actually changed in terms of scheduling and you can see the benefit of such an arrangement.

In order not to get too complex and to be able to fit everything into a reasonable space, the book covers the last 15 years of operations. Now what this does, in addition to covering all the additional countries, is enable more images to be used as beforehand, photographing even commercial aircraft was frowned upon through much of the Soviet Union and could land the photographer in much trouble. The edition also does not cover helicopter operations.

The book has its 160 pages and many hundreds of color photos organized by country and by the name of the airline. So it starts with Afghanistan and ends with Zaire. In between are a bevy of countries and superb photos of the planes of hundreds of airlines, most of which will probably be new to you if you are not a die-hard airline fan.

An absolute treat and very much a must-have for airliner enthusiasts.

May 2007

Review book courtesy of , where you can order your copy of this and many other superb aviation and modeling books. Visit their website at the link above or call them at 1-800-895-4585

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has over 350,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.