[.ca] Tupolev Tu-95/-142 Bear: Russia's Intercontinental Range ... (ISBN 185780046X)

Another Fine Aerofax Book:
Yefim Gordon and Vladimir Rigant's TUPOLEV TU-95 / -142 "BEAR" is a history and description of the famous Soviet Bear bomber (Tu-95) and maritime patrol aircraft (Tu-142), which became a prominent symbol of Soviet power with its swept wings and four huge Kuznetsov turboprops, driving oversized threshing contrarotating propellers. What other machine could so vividly represent the Russian "Bear" itself? Soviet / Russian aircraft have long been poorly known in the West, and such documentation as has been available on them has long been flawed by errors and misunderstandings. This makes a book like BEAR very valuable, as it obviously contains almost exhaustive material from primary sources, covering in detail the Tu-95 and Tu-142 itself, plus the similar Tu-114 airliner and Tu-126 AWACS aircraft, as well as special variants such a flying laboratory carrying a nuclear reactor. BEAR is thoroughly illustrated, mostly with black and white photographs (including a "walk-around" chapter on the aircraft), but does include a section of color photographs (including some nice shots of the aircraft's interior, painted in the pleasant turquoise favored by the Soviets) and an end section with engineering-style 3-view and (mostly) profile illustrations. However, BEAR does suffer from one serious flaw: the authors need to take writing courses. As a reference work to be consulted, BEAR is fine, but it's simply not the sort of thing that is easily read from end to end. I have seen other books that Yefim Gordon has had a hand in and always think he misses some obvious bets. Adding things like a short introductory chapter to give a overview of the aircraft, essentially providing a "roadmap" for the reader, and providing comparable introductory sections to chapters would be a big help. Another helpful thing would be to sort out all the minor variants and consolidate them into separate chapters, instead of forcing readers to wade through a stream of information and letting them try to sort out the big picture on their own. I had to laugh at the "evolutionary chart" of the Bear family on page 31, which was so convoluted that it looked like one of those "joke" orgcharts that show up in cartoons -- it even had *loops* in it. Apparently Mr. Gordon has troubles with the basic notion of technical writing that a workable, easily understood simplification is preferable to the full eye-glazing truth -- and all the fine details can be provided later in the fine print if need be. At least the evolutionary chart gave a bit of humor, however unintentional, to BEAR. To be sure, this is a good book. It just could have been better. If you want to know about the Bear -- this is the place to go.