Tupolev Tu-95 & Tu-142: Famous Russian Aircraft

In the field of aviation references, it's very rare to stumble across a book on a particular aircraft that could truly be described as "definitive." I don't mean to knock the hard work and dedication of many aviation historians, but it's not very often I finish a book and say "well, that's that, don't need to buy another book on that plane ever again." This book in the "Famous Russian Aircraft" series is an exception to that rule. It's a table shaking beast of a book, lavishly illustrated, fastidiously detail-oriented, and occasionally somewhat self-indulgent. It has some of the same flaws found in Yefim Gordon's other works, but at the same time, I can't imagine there's a more comprehensive English language book on the 'Bear' currently available, or anytime in the near future for that manner.Breaking down the contents:-The forerunners (10 pages) Provides some background information on the early development of Soviet strategic bombers in the early Cold War.-The Bear is born: Design and testing (34 pages) Covers the refinement of the Tu-95 design, the prototype flight test program, and the initial entry into service.-'First-generation' Air Force versions (110 pages)-The naval versions (74 pages)-'Second-generation' cruise missile carriers (36 pages) These three chapters describe every major variant and conversion of the Tu-95/142 ever produced, along with a large number of upgrade programs, one (or two)-off variants (such as the Tu-116 VIP transport and Tu-119 atomic laboratory), and numerous unbuilt concepts.-The Bear in detail (76 pages) This chapter provides the bulk of the book's technical material, with descriptions of the air-frame, avionics, weapons, and powerplant of the original Tu-95, Tu-95MS, and Tu-142. It also includes a large number of diagrams and external and internal "walk-around" photographs.-The Tu-95 in service: Air Force operations (82 pages)-Bears over the oceans: Navy versions in action (62 pages) These two chapters provide a fairly concise overview of the Bears' 60-year career with the Soviet and Russian militaries. They also feature a number of first-hand accounts of interesting missions, descriptions of overseas deployments, and attempts at untangling the confused web of unit reassignments and relocations in the last decade of the Cold War.-Tu-95 and Tu-142 operators (27 pages) Provides some additional insights into post-Cold War operations, including Bears left behind in Ukraine and Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the operations of the Tu-142MK-E with the Indian Navy, the type's only export version.-Line drawings (14 pages) 36 drawings from the Aerofax monograph, mostly profile views.-Tu-95/Tu-142 production list (10 pages) Lists all known Bear manufacturing numbers, tactical codes, manufacturing dates, and production batches.-Accident attrition (13 pages) Brief descriptions of every known accident resulting in aircraft damage or crew injury or death.As you may have noticed, this book is massive. I didn't own the original edition published in 2009, nor did I plan on paying the obscene prices used copies of it are currently demanding. Although I can't directly compare both editions, the 2017 edition is an impressive 144 pages longer and describes upgrade programs currently proposed and underway, and describes events that happened as recently as July 2017. In response to Craig Paffhausen's review, this edition goes into quite a bit of detail on the many types of cruise missiles cleared or proposed for use by the aircraft. The entire book is jammed with rare photographs, original technical diagrams, and color profiles with close-ups of nose art - as conservative as they may be. The pages are thick, glossy stock, and if the jacket blurb is to believed, there are more than 1,300 illustrations in total.As with Yefim Gordon's other books, this book has some quirks I had to grit my teeth and get past. The authors assume the reader has a greater than usual grasp on Soviet military organization and policy, and the machinations of the Soviet government and aircraft industry. Trust me - you're going to need it! There are numerous typos, no maps, no bibliography, and no glossary, and while there's an index, it's so paltry as to be practically useless. This book is worth five stars just for how ambitious, fascinating, and in-depth it is; I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and bought four more books in the series. Still, I wish Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov weren't so stubborn when it comes to providing a little bit of supplementary material at the end of their books.

If you are an avid fan of the mighty TU-95/142 "Bear" bomber, you will like this expanded edition. Well written, more pages, more photos (both color & B&W), and more detail drawings.This revised and expanded edition is fatter than the first edition published by the same authors. Excellent exterior and interior photos and diagrams that brings you up close the real plane, with various angles that captures almost every detail of the plane. Excellent reference photos for modelers. Highly recommend this book.This book is definitely worth the price for the wealth of detailed information, photos, and diagrams that you get. Buy it; you will not be disappointed with your purchase.

This is the fifth entry in the "Famous Russian Aircraft" series published by Midland. The famous aircraft this time is the "Bear" - the NATO code name seems to have found universal usage even amongst its makers.Needless to say all military versions of the Bear family are covered. The commercial versions are covered in the Red Star series. The book's 400 odd pages break down roughly as follows. The first 50 pages describe the background, conception, development, and testing. The next 150 pages describe the various versions. There are a 100 pages of an operational history followed by the various air arms that operated the aircraft with serial information where known. The book is rounded off with a detailed description of the aircraft and its systems. There is also an appendix describing various accidents and incidents. It's striking how often misbehaving tail gunners figure in these.Illustrations are of high quality. There are numerous line drawings both contemporary and commissioned and some nice color profiles. A large percentage of the photos are in color.There are a few nits that can be picked. The book mistakenly identifies the RDS-3 test on October 18, 1951 as the first Soviet atomic bomb. The US carrier USS Nimitz is incorrectly rendered as USS Chester W. Nimitz. Sonobuoys are described as "nose direction finding" instead of "noise direction finding".More serious are two complaints I have about all the books in the series. No maps and no index.But all in all, I highly recommend this book in this great series. I understand that the next aircraft covered will be the wartime Il-2. Bring it on. I only regret that Midland's Red Star Series seems to have come to a halt to make way for this one.

If you are a fan of the Tu-95 this book is a must own. Period.

This book gives the reader a great look at a classic Cold War aircraft. Unlike other books in this series, this book seems to have less technical details about the aircraft itself (some might say that is not a bad thing) and contains a great deal of information about the aircraft's variety of equipment and weapons systems, including the weapons themselves. That was a welcome and unexpected bonus with this book.

This book is incredible and quite the in-depth collection of technology of years ago to it’s potent current status still holding guard on it’s motherland.

I wish there was a book with such quality on the B-52, B-58, B-47 and many others....such detail and high grade pictures. Outstanding series and have most of them.

very expensive lacking color but lots of gen info great work overall

I’ve always had a special interest in Soviet aircraft, and I’ve never been disappointed in any book put together by Yefim Gordon, and this impressive volume doesn’t disappoint either. The Tu95 and the Tu142 are impressive aircraft. Personally I would say that if you’ve any interest in these ‘Bears’ then I don’t think you could do much better than this book. I found the text highly readable, and there were many pictures that I’d certainly not seen before. I’m very pleased with this volume. If you have an interest at all in the Tu95 then I’d recommend you buy this book.

The Tu-95 "Bear" (and it's derivatives) is one of the few designs which is genuinely iconic and unique, a remarkable design that despite it's age remains in service and will not be retired for quite a while yet. Along with the equally remarkable Boeing B52 it is an old cold war warrior that refuses to die and which has evolved to remain relevant despite the passing years. Something that I find to be nice is that despite dating from the same era and having both been designed as long range strategic heavy bombers to deliver nuclear weapons to targets many thousands of miles from home it is hard to imagine designs being more different than the B52 and Tu-95. In an era of homogenized blandness it is nice to be reminded of aircraft which are so different despite sharing much in common. Strangely the Tu-95 does share it's lineage with Boeing in a sense as the fuselage can trace its design back to the Tu-4 (via the prototype only Tu-80 and Tu-85) which was a reverse engineered Boeing B29. Whereas Boeing went with jet engines for the B47 and then B52 Tupolev opted for huge high powered Kuznetsov turboprop engines for the Tu-95. This was not because the USSR didn't have jet engine designs, Tupolev prepared a jet powered proposal during the initial stages of the design and had designed the Tu-16 jet bomber (which is still the mainstay of the China PLAAF bomber force as the Xian H-6) and the Tu-95 was in competition with the Myasishchev M-4 "Bison" which was powered by jet engines. The turboprop engines were selected for their fuel efficiency which gave significantly greater range than the jet alternative, this was at the expense of reduced speed (circa. 60mph lower cruise speed) but Tupolev decided that the advantage of added range outweighed a lower cruising speed. Given the unfortunate career of the competing Myasishchev M-4 and the evergreen career of the Tu-95 this was a decision that was vindicated by the sterling service rendered by the Tu-95 despite it having been quite a high risk proposal which required the support of Stalin against air ministry and air force pressure to go with jet propulsion (yes, I know a turboprop is a gas turbine the same as a jet, but it drives propellers rather than using thrust from the turbine exhaust and fan). The engines, with their huge contra-rotating propellers combined with swept back wings give the Tu-95 its iconic style. And that noise. The noise of those propellers is something to behold apparently, although sadly I have to take the word of those who have heard them. Over its career the Tu-95 achieved much, for example it was a specially modified Tu-95 which dropped the infamous 50 mega-ton Tsar bomba in 1961, the largest nuclear device ever tested, yet I hadn't realized that it was never used in anger until 2015 when the current Tu-95MS version was used to launch cruise missiles against targets in Syria. This is very different to the B52 which has seen extensive combat use across many decades. Another major difference between the two virtual contemporaries is that whereas the B52 was very much a bomber, the Tu-95 was developed into the Tu-114 airliner, Tu-116 VIP carrier, Tu-126 AEW&C platform (AWACS) and probably most successfully the Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance and ASW aircraft.Anyone who has read any of the other books written by Gordon and Komissarov will know what to expect. A comprehensive and detailed history which starts with the Tu-4 and follows the design through its life with a wealth of illustrations in the form of photographs, line drawings and colour profiles. The text is very readable, and it is nice to read books written with a different perspective on Soviet designs. Beautifully produced this is a seriously heavy weight tome and probably the only book anyone will ever need on this mighty machine.One of the perpetual questions among aviation enthusiasts is which was (is) better - the B52 or the Tu-95? Although the Tu-95 has been more versatile in fulfilling a number of very different roles I think any reasonable observer would have to admit that the B52 is a better aircraft, it carries a much heavier payload at significantly higher speed and with a higher service ceiling, but there is something about the Tu-95 which is compelling from an enthusiasts perspective. And ultimately it's a pointless comparison. The two designs were never intended to dog fight against each other and weren't competing against each other to win contracts, the only question which really matters was whether they fulfilled their intended roles. And to answer that one, yes, not only did both designs fill the roles they were designed and built for, but the fact they're still in service and have seen off attempts to replace them indicates they did it spectacularly well. Very highly recommended, a wonderful book.

First thing to make clear is that this is a stunning book. Beautifully produced with a solid hardback, secure binding and high quality gloss finish paper. The later results in a crisp clear text easy to read and really clear reproduction of photographs and line drawings. The book is packed full with hundreds of pictures and wonderfully detailed line drawings. I doubt you will ever find a more comprehensive pictorial record of these aircraft types. You will not be disappointed to have this title on your bookshelf. I have the 2nd edition which sacrifices some of the line drawings for additional content on subtypes not included in the 1st edition.So where is the catch?My criticism, which I admit may be unfair, comes from not what this title is, but more from what it could have been.For all it’s size and content it is not a definitive history of these aircraft. As most who are interested in the subject will know, this basic type was based on captured B29’s which landed in the Soviet Union, which accounts for it’s rather limited fuselage dimensions. (In that regard the later civilian Tu-114 is far more interesting, but not covered in this book). What made this aircraft the icon it is was the development of the wings and most important of all the engines. Both of which have very limited content within this title, the engines criminally little. Given what this title does contain and the research that must have been undertaken I cannot understand this omission. In addition, given that these engines had such a distinctive audible signature that reportedly could be picked up from undersea submarine sensors, plus reports from chasing NATO pilots regarding the noise, just how the crews managed to maintain operational effectiveness just metres away is not mentioned at all. Further, there is a surprising lack of technical and specification detail. Buried within the text is a wealth of anecdotal and some operational information, but it is not easily accessed. The index is limited and I guess few will sit down and read it cover to cover. If you do, come supplied with lots of stick-it notes so you can mark references for later use.A couple of features, that are applicable to all the books in this series, which are worth noting are that there is a lot of name dropping, which can become tiresome. This seems to be a feature of Soviet/Russian technical authors., perhaps understandable in a regime where the individual is subservient to the collective. There is also a repetitive oddity within the text. Where ever long winded Russian descriptions are shortened to initials portions of the words are highlighted in bold. This does not seem to correspond to the letters initialised, and not understanding Russian I’m still none the wiser.As I said at the outset, don’t let any of this put you off buying the book, but just be aware of what you are purchasing.

This is a huge fascinating book that for anyone at all interested in this aeroplane must have. It is not cheap but you get a lot for your money, hundreds of photos and lots of drawings. One of my favourite aircraft in all its variations ( and they are all here ) I am saving for my next book in the series.....

Although I paid over the rrp I am more than satisfied with this superb volume the photgraphs,line drawings etc are excellent and one could not ask for more on the subject of this aircraft. Buy it if you can. (2018) I have bought the recently published update of this volume and can only say it is superb. Yes,one can nitpick but the low price and massive size of this volume make it great value for the money paid.