By the end of the Second World War the USA and Great Britain had
developed viable jet fighters, even if these aircraft came a bit too
late to have a significant impact on the course of the conflict. Germany
achieved greater success, using the Me 262 and He 162 jet fighters
operationally in the closing stages of the war. In contrast, the Soviet
Union lagged behind, even though research on turbojet engines had begun
in the USSR in the late 1930s. This deficiency was recognized and at the
end of the war, captured German jet aircraft and engines enabled the
USSR to reverse-engineer the technology. Even so, the USSR struggled to
catch up until in 1946, the British Labor government gifted the Soviets
the latest in propulsion technology, the Rolls-Royce Nene and Derwent V
engines. This inexplicable action allowed a much more capable generation
of Soviet jet fighters to be born and by the end of the 1940s Soviet
industry had caught up with, and in some respects surpassed the West, in
jet aviation.
Because of the Stalinist era in which the first Soviet jets were
developed, up until now little has been known about the early post-war
designs from the design bureaus of Mikoyan, Yakovlev, Lavochkin, Sukhoi
and Alekseyev and the background to even relatively well-known types
such as the MiG-9, La-9 and YAK-15 is barely documented. Other early jet
types, proposals and projects were virtually unknown in the West. This
gap is now redressed by the famous Soviet aviation historian Yefim
Gordon and in his latest work he draws on extensive research in design
bureau files, official documents and military archives, many of which
have only very recently become available, having been labelled 'Top
Secret' for decades.
This volume presents, in considerable detail, the development, history
and technical specifications of the earliest Soviet jet fighters and the
extensive illustrations-around 750 photos, over 50
specially-commissioned color drawings and a host of line drawings--are
mostly from previously classified sources the majority of which are
previously unseen. This book is certain to be essential reading for
aviation historians, enthusiasts and modelers.
