Modern Fighting Aircraft [antikvár]

Introduction MODERN fighting aircraft have histories which closely parallel those of the books which are written about them. At the start of their lives they are the very best that human brains can devise within the current state of the art. Eventually, after a few years, they rather suddenly seem to be no longer the apple of their creators' eyes, and they have to be updated in various ways. Even this no longer suffices after a further passage of time, and then the agonizing decision has to be taken to terminate the whole programme and start again. In 1977 Salamander Books published my book entitled "Modern Military Aircraft". In over 150,000 words of text and hundreds of colour photographs it described more than 210 basic types of modern warplane. It was something of a landmark in aviation publishing. Eventually, however, despite what the planemakers call a mid-life update, it began to show its age. In 1983 we began work on the next-generation replacement, not an updated version, but a completely new book, which you have before you. This volume contains at least as many different aircraft types as did "MMA", and the number of words has increased tremendously. Probably, when this book in turn has to be replaced some time in the 1990s the future book will contain fewer types, but will need at least as many words in order to cover the subject. This is because the number of types of military aircraft is inexorably falling, while each aircraft becomes more and more complex. Even the present volume could not include anything like 210 basic types were it not for the profusion of new turboprop and turbojet trainers. Between writing the book proper and penning this introduction in August 1984 yet another new aircraft in this overcrowded class appeared: the Romanian IAV (Craiova) 40. Few aircraft in these trainer categories can show an overall profit on investment, because in the modern world the design, tooling and development costs are astronomic by all previous yardsticks, and they can be recovered only by sustained high-rate production over many years. When 20 types are competing for the same limited market this is clearly impossible of attainment. This will inevitably mean fewer types in the 1990s, and also fewer nations with the capability of designing military aircraft. Already many countries which formerly had this capability have now been reduced to doing no more than assembling, and to a limited extent manufacturing, foreign designs under licence. Behind many of the more serious long-term problems is the spectre of inflation. This tends to multiply the financial risks in each new project, to make it more difficult to achieve realistic costings on a