Product Information

• One of the great success stories of aviation publishing in recent years has been Midland's 'Secret Projects' series. Starting with three volumes of Luftwaffe Secret Projects and following on with the British Secret Projects series, we now turn to the what the Soviets were getting up. The aviation industry of the former Soviet Union has produced many outstanding military aircraft. However, there were many other proposed projects for fighters and bombers that never saw the light of day and almost all of them are completely unknown in the West. The end of the Cold War has given the opportunity for researchers in Russia to uncover these projects for the first time. The M.4, Tu-16 and Tu-22 are well known, but there were many more that never flew. This volume, the first in a planned series of three, details many of the jet bomber projects drawn up between the late 1940s and the present day and shows just how creative the Design Bureaux could be. A large proportion come from the Design Bureau of Andrei Tupolev, but there are others from the Myasischev, Sukhoi and Yakovlev Bureaux. Access to original archives from the various Bureaux has ensured a level of in-depth coverage and accuracy never previously possible in a book covering unbuilt Soviet bombers. The book also describes the competition between these projects 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 with contemporary Western aircraft programmes. Many of the drawings and illustrations have never previously been published and there are some specially commissioned renditions of 'might-have-been' types.