Among the best-selling aviation titles of recent years have been Midland's Lutwaffe and British Secret Projects series. Soviet secret projects now come under the spotlight. This first volume covers bomber concepts from the various design bureaus from the 1940s onwards. Many unusual and sophisticated aircraft are featured in these pages, allowing comparisons between what the Soviets were working on and what was being produced in the West during that period.
This is the latest among Midland's very successful 'Secret Projects' series. This, the second of three volumes covering Soviet secret aviation projects, is devoted to post-World War II fighters and will include designs from famous bureaus such as Lavochkin, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Yakovlev, Myasishchev, and Tupolev. The book covers early post-war fighters, competitions for the first-generation supersonic designs (MiG-21 and Su-7/-9), advanced designs of the 1960s which led to the MiG-2 and competitions to build the specifications which resulted in the MiG-29, Su-27, and MiG I-44. A number of previously unpublished Yakovlev designs from the late 1950s and early 1960s form a separate chapter, followed by another covering Yakovlev's VSTOL work. The book also describes the competition between design bureaus for orders and shows the progress made in aircraft design behind the Iron Curtain. It will give both experts and enthusiasts the chance to compare this work to Western aircraft programs of the era.
This book surveys all the Soviet/Russian aircraft that either remained “paper projects” (the work progressed no further than the design documents or even merely a design proposal) or were abandoned at the prototype construction stage. Over many years, the authors have unearthed a mass of unpublished material on these aircraft projects including the Isayev/Shevchenko bi-monoplane fighters with retractable lower wings developed in the 1930s, early Soviet jet fighter projects of the Second World War period, and the twin-boom fighters and attack aircraft developed by Semyon M. Alekseyev in the late 1940s. Wherever possible, images of the aircraft are shown, including pictures of models, and line and cutaway drawings from the project documents, giving the readers the maximum available information on Soviet aircraft projects developed over a large time scale. The book is richly illustrated with numerous photos, drawings, and diagrams, as well as color side views of the unbuilt aircraft, which will be of interest not only to the numerous Soviet/Russian aviation enthusiasts but also to scale modelers.
This new addition to the highly successful 'Secret Projects' series adds a new dimension to the weird, wonderful and wacky ideas that were developed to conquer space
This is the first attempt to understand the full scope of the USSR’s offensive biological weapons research, from inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the U.S. and U.K. never obtained clear evidence that he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be present in Russia today.
One of the most unusual strands in aviation history has been the development of wing-in-ground effect (WIG) vehicles, or as they are more commonly known by their Russian name, Ekranploans. Beginning with a brief outline of the concept from the theory to viable technical solutions, this new, expanded edition of Soviet and Russian Ekranploans gives a historical survey of the development of WIG research and construction in Russia. A large part of the book focuses on a type-by-type description of specific designs of ekranoplans developed in the Soviet Union and Russia in the course of half a century. Special emphasis is given to the activities of Rostislav Alekseyev, who has played an enormous role in the development of this new technology. Ekranoplans developed by several other major design bureaus, notably those led by Sukhoi, Bartini and Beriyev, are also considered. Economic and political transformations following the break-up of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of privately-owned design bureaus and firms that are now pursuing the development of WIG aircraft in Russia, given the lack of interest on the part of the military and the state in this branch of transport technology. This new edition has been fully updated to include unpublished photos and diagrams and examples of similar technology being developed in countries outside of Russian, including the USA, Germany and China. This is a welcome update to a book regarded as the definitive work on these unusual and exciting aircraft.
The “utterly fascinating” untold story of Soviet Russia’s global military mapping program—featuring many of the surprising maps that resulted (Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian). From 1950 to 1990, the Soviet Army conducted a global topographic mapping program, creating large-scale maps for much of the world that included a diversity of detail that would have supported a full range of military planning. For big cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and London to towns like Pontiac, MI, and Galveston, TX, the Soviets gathered enough information to create street-level maps. The information on these maps ranged from the locations of factories and ports to building heights, road widths, and bridge capacities. Some of the detail suggests early satellite technology, while other specifics, like detailed depictions of depths and channels around rivers and harbors, could only have been gained by Soviet spies on the ground. The Red Atlas includes over 350 extracts from these incredible Cold War maps, exploring their provenance and cartographic techniques as well as what they can tell us about their makers and the Soviet initiatives that were going on all around us.
Combating bureaucratic resistance, dwindling funds, untested equipment, and savage weather conditions, the small American team of researchers and intelligence specialists raced against time to take advantage of a rare opportunity to assess the Soviets' progress in meteorology, oceanography, and especially submarine detection - before the station disintegrated. The key to success was the Fulton Skyhook, a new technology designed to snatch the men from the ice on a 500-foot, balloon lifted line and reel them up into a specially outfitted B-17 bomber traveling at 125 knots.
Featuring the obscure, the unusual, the unbuilt and the unseen. The secret is out - Secret Projects is back. This is a new title in this highly acclaimed series, this time looking at concepts developed by the US aircraft industry in the years immediately prior to and during World War 2. This book includes and describes the major fighter and bomber proposals form the American aircraft industry which embrace various fighter and interceptor concepts, medium, heavy and intercontinental bombers, attack aircraft and anti-submarine aircraft, both for the USAF and US Navy. Particular emphasis is placed on 'Circular Proposals' - a system of submitting designs against requirements circulated around the industry by the Army Air Force in the 1930s and early 1940s. The illustrations show drawings and photographs of unbuilt designs merged with the history and photographs of real aeroplanes. Very little has been published previously about American projects from this time period and much of the material will not have been seen widely before. it will therefore be fascinating reading for all lovers of the previously highly successful 'Secret Projects' series and aviation historians.
