Product Description

A completely revised, third edition of this guide to modern aircraft. Since the first edition of this book was published in 1996, there have been major changes to the world's air forces and significant developments in the civil aviation business. As we enter into the 21st century a new generation of military aircraft is entering service, and mid-life upgrades are significantly changing both military and civil fleets. "Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide" provides technical specifications from "Jane's All the World's Aircraft" (published since 1909). The new format also allows for additional aircraft and information to be featured.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #522569 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
The most comprehensive guide to modern aircraft available to the general public has been completely revised to reflect major changes in the world's air forces and developments in the civil aviation business. Illustrated with line drawings, recognition silhouettes and brand new photographs.

About the Author
Michael J. Gething has been writing about military aeroplanes for over 30 years and has been a full-time journalist since 1973. Besides 17 years as a member of staff on Defence Magazine, eight of them as Editor; Michael has been Editor on Jane's Defence Upgrades. Gunter Endres is an Aviation consultant and writer publishing numerous books and articles on aspects of civil aviation. Gunter is editor for Jane's Airport Review and Airline Business amongst others as well as being a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Customer Reviews

Where's the beef
I had looked forward to this for a long time, it was on back order and the release date kept slipping.... I had hoped for great things, at the very least a significant improvement on the first edition that has been well thumbed. Yes, it is now full of colour photos. But that is where the improvement stops in my opinion. Detail specs are now missing - no engine info and limited other details. The index is poor. Will I order the next edition before publication? - No.

Could be better
All the pictures are small and B/W, quite a few don't help recognition very much. The silhouettes are tiny, almost completely black, in some cases unclear. Few technical data, nothing about engines, power, performances.

Good for basics
This is first ever Jane's recognition book I own myself. I have been keen on aviation since I was a kid, and read my aircraft recognition knowledge from many different books and other sources. Now, I have found that new version of Jane's recognition book has been very handy. I can take it with me where ever I go and when I am hesitating on plane types, I just see this book. It does not give absolute knowledge of all details between all variants and models, but covers well enough all necessary flying vehicles. Now I work for KFOR and there has been even more use for the book, it covers military aircraft very well and so far I haven't found a single aircraft that has not been in the book. In most cases, it even has enough details to recognise small details between, for example, military helicopters, which are here very common, and differences between civil and military versions.

Only thing I miss, is to have a better glossary and possibility to find aircraft types quickly by sorting them by amount of engines, props etc.

This book is excellent for basics, but if you wish to be able to recognise all variants of some model, then I recommend something else. I doubt if there is any book that would give perfect data for spotting every variant of every model, that book would just be too heavy to take anywhere!