Technical

Within this volume you will find a collection of real-life stories concerning incidents, accidents, events, decisions, mistakes, oddities, arguments and above all beautiful British aircraft from the cold war period. Each of the 17 pieces comes with a guarantee of painstaking research carried out by some of the finest aviation historians working around the world today.

Born in the 1950s when the Cold War was rapidly escalating, the subsonic Blackburn Buccaneer was designed as a carrier-borne strike aircraft, which eventually went on to serve both the Royal Navy and the RAF.

The revolutionary Harrier took to the skies in December 1967, going on to become the star of the Royal Navy and Air Force during the Falkland Islands War in 1982.

Featuring more than 200 highly detailed full colour profiles from world renowned artist Claes Sundin, Luftwaffe Fighters covers every major fighter type flown by the German air force during the Second World War.

Key drivers to a fifth destination for future world fighter forces In time, all fighters will have qualities that deceive, evade, confuse, lock-on to a target and kill it - without being seen, heard or detected There is no place to hide and when the fourth generation know they are under attack - they are already dead. 

The West was stunned when the Soviet Union dropped its first atomic bomb in August 1949. In the wake of the Second World War, funding for the RAF had fallen away dramatically but now there was an urgent need for new jet fighters to meet the threat of Russian bombers head-on. 

In the years that followed Germany's crushing defeat in the First World War, German aviators took to flying gliders - a sport which led to rapid advances in the study of aerodynamics. 

With the aid of 116 extraordinarily detailed and accurate line drawings illustrating the interior fittings and fixtures, Technical Drawings of Aircraft of World War II shows how a wide selection of classic military aircraft were constructed.

From the Fokker biplanes to World War II fighters like the Supermarine Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf 109, and from heft bombers like the Boeing B-17 to Cold War classics such as the MiG-21 and on to stealth aircraft such as the SR-71 and Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, each entry in 'Top 50 Military Aircraft' tells you all you need to know about the best there has been.