This is another of Stratus' very nicely done books in the Spotlight On series. This time it concentrates on the F-5E/F. This particular aircraft was a development of the already successful F-5A/B/C series with improvements in avionics, airframe and engines. It made it a much more potent aircraft, yet kept the relatively simple maintenance characteristics that make for a successful export fighter.

The type was used in the last years of the Vietnam War and the final production aircraft were delivered to Singapore in 1988/9. Even today, the 'Tiger II' has been upgraded and is still in use with several nations. In particular, Iran has based one of its newer aircraft on this airframe.

This edition devotes all of it color pages to profiles, much like the earlier Yak-3 book I reviewed. There are no upper/lower view illustrations, which would be quite welcome as many of these planes had some rather involved camouflage schemes. The artist has also chosen to offer both right and left side profiles of the same aircraft on corresponding pages. That means when you open a page, you get both sides on the facing pages.

All of the profiles are full 'vertical' page size and so you basically turn the book 90 degrees to properly view them all. Each entry has a small descriptive paragraph and a short history is provided at the very start. In all, it makes for a nice book for the enthusiast.

September 2017

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