This book is rather different from the one reviewed above, as most of the information will be new to us. Fortunately, it has an English narrative as well as the Russian, and does what it says. There are about 1000 photographs mostly of a very high standard, although there are the usual large number of crashes pictured – perhaps this was the only way of keeping an aircraft still enough to photograph. I am struck once again by the sheer size and beauty of many Russian aircraft, especially the early ones. They also tried some weird ideas – how about a flying boat equipped with underwater wings? Nevertheless the Russians took military aviation very seriously much earlier than the rest of the world – indeed a government committee was set up to discuss the military use of ‘aerostats’ as early as 1869. By 1910 there was in existence an aviation industry and an air force. My appetite has been whetted for more from Russia, after this splendid appetiser.