Previous Putnam volumes dealing with the Tupolev and Yakovlev design bureaux have indicated the vast amount of source material now available in Russia for aeronautical historians able, first, to locate and access it, then to assimilate, assess and use it to write new and accurate histories, often enough for the first time, at least in any comprehensive detail. In that respect Messrs Gunston and Gordon seem already an ideal team for the purpose of using this newly available information to correct (or do away with altogether) many previous Western suppositions or guesses, then go on to produce a coherent and accurate account of the Soviet aircraft design bureaux.
This volume is typical of the “new” breed of the Putnam Aeronautical series dealing with a “new” range of subjects. As far as USSR aviation is concerned, so much earlier myth (and deliberate Soviet misinformation) has first to be cleared out of the way so that a newly accurate and quite comprehensive history can be presented. That is the measure of Gunston and Gordon’s achievement in this volume especially. To aircraft enthusiasts of my generation the name MiG (Mikoyan i Gurevich) produces an immediate response: we seemed to grow up with a whole stable of fighter aircraft on the other side of the Iron Curtain, from the MiG 15 in Korea, through the MiG 17, 19, 21, 23 and on to contemporary models.Then in reading World War II history, the MiG 3 fighter would feature prominently. In between we knew a little about the MiG 9, the bureau’s first production jet fighter, but now at last we can appreciate in accurate and comprehensive detail the whole range of prototypes and research aircraft also developed by the design bureau of Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich, from the Oktyabryonok designed by Mikoyan (with K. Samarin and N.A. Pavolv) in 1936 and Polikarpov’s I.200, through the MiG 1 to the contemporary (and posthumous ‐ Mikoyan died in 1970 and Gurevich in 1976) MiG 29, AT series and various projects.
The treatment within Putnam “company” volumes is initially technical, and so it is here. One of the most noteworthy achievements of this book is that it clearly describes not only all the basic designs, but also all the numerous variants and sub‐variants of them, complete with their correct designations, and full details of their construction, equipment, performance, variations etc. The book is illustrated throughout with numerous new (and clear ‐ gone are those fuzzy distant shots we had to rely on in most reference books of the fifties and sixties) photographs, and general arrangement drawings, some from original sources, but most drawn specifically for this book. Other volumes also cover production and operational use of each aircraft type, but that is largely missing here. It is no real wonder as the sheer numbers built of some of the types and their widespread use throughout the Soviet world, and elsewhere (such as the many thousands of MiG 21s and variants built in the USSR and Soviet bloc countries, as well as licence production in China, and operated by 56 air forces throughout the world), as well as the continuing comparative paucity of information on Soviet Air Force units, would make that a most daunting task and lead to a volume much larger and more expensive than the present one. But even allowing for that, a little more detail on production and main air force use would have been both welcome and a useful supplement to the technical information provided.
Still, we must be grateful for what we do have here: the first clear and accurate survey of all the aircraft types built by one of the world’s major design offices. As is now standard (and invaluable, indeed essential) Putnam practice, the account of each type is preceded by a general chapter explaining the overall political and general history of the backgrounds of the two designers, the establishment of the bureau and its development and overall contribution throughout its history. It is not, especially in the earlier Stalinist years, always an edifying story, but reflects the nature of Stalin’s USSR. Such chapters provide an essential background to the more detailed type‐by‐type accounts which follow. Appendices cover engines and armament and there are also sections on guided missiles and current civil projects (as the bureau attempts a realignment following the collapse of its home market for combat aircraft).
The overall result is another triumph for a remarkable series. It would be difficult to overstate the enormous amount of new, detailed accurate technical information presented in this volume, clearing up past uncertainties and confusions and giving us a comprehensive history of the products of a major name in world aviation and whose aircraft were at the centre of the Cold War. As with just about every volume in this series, it belongs in any collection concerned with the history of aviation or technical history. And now, perhaps, we can look forward to further similar volumes on other Soviet bureaux: Ilyushin, Sukhoi, Lavochkin and the rest all await their historians.
