A mini encyclopaedia of modern military aircraft in use today covering fighter, bombers and reconnaissance. Each aircraft has clear photos and illustrations across 2 or 3 pages, some statistics plus text covering other useful information such as where they have been deployed or some history. This book covers aircraft from across the world, including Russian and Chinese models.
A good reference for military aircraft lovers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Another in a series of books that provide brief design and operational histories of airplanes of a particular type or, in this case, during a specific time period. The focus is on modern "fourth and fifth generation" fighters and other modern aircraft. Excellent side views with some two-page artistic renderings of the most significant aircraft of the period.

If you are interested in military aircraft, what their specs are, and a summary about the aircraft, then I could not have found the more prefect book for you!

Each of the military aircraft are split into the different generations of fighters that their are, as well a section on bombers, strike and attack aircraft, and transport and reconnaissance. Each section includes a nice variety of aircraft, aside from the fifth generation fighters (mainly because they are so new that there are so few models of them). Each aircraft has a photo-realistic drawing (I assume what would be an actual design sketch), and lots of the older more known aircraft have photos included, with some incredible action shots in here.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find my favourite bomber included in here, the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. I cannot remember how I actually found out about this aircraft, especially since I memories of it from when I was around 9 or 10 years old, so to be able to read up about it and see the sketch designs of it is amazing.

The perfect coffee table book for aircraft lovers.

Loved reading about all the military aircraft. Would love to own a physical copy of this book to have on my coffee table.

Yes, I'll admit – I was one of those kids wondering who this Jane woman was and why she was so interested in planes and ships and so on. I've not seen one of their books (for Jane's is very much a company now, using the first bloke's surname) in donkeys' years, but I can't imagine them utterly different from this. From the fifth generation back, this takes us through the development of fighter jets, easily if slightly drily offering short essays for each one on its development, power, gear, armaments and owners. Detailed side-on pictures, lovely photos, databanks – all that you'd expect is here, and if I think briefly about it all that might be lacking is the full operational history. Mind you, these things are so bloody deadly and so bloody expensive to build, buy and operate, the pacifist in me is rather happy there is not a lot of usage to be reported. (Also, Saudi Arabia's use of the Eurofighter might not be quite what we intended when we sold dozens to them, but nobody dare complain too much.)

For the non-military minded, there is the quite surprisingly recent development of all-weather systems and targeting, as opposed to planes that could only operate in daylight, and a perhaps-to-be-expected spread of CAFMA – Clumsy As Military Acronyms. The biggest issue must be, however, that it's going backwards – the most modern might be the sexiest, but they're the under-used, the less frequently bought, flown and shown, and someone wanting to gen up on the progression here will have to speed to Su-27s before what came after in time, but before it on the page. Still, that's not a major issue as there aren't that many planes of any one type – for yes, we cover transporters, bombers, recon flights and more before we're done. For anyone about to goof in the comments on Big Jet TV's next airbase visit, this will be a face-saver. For many military buffs and fans of flight, this will be delightful and should be most educational. Either way, it's a good-looking gift choice.