When I was given the opportunity to review this book, I thought back to a time when I was growing up in Ohio. Our family lived near Fairborn, Ohio which is home to the U.S. Air Force Museum. My father served in the Air Force and would often take our family to the museum. The one exhibit that always captured my attention was the B-36 on display inside the museum. Having read through “Cold War Peacemaker…” I have certainly have gained in knowledge about the history, design, and use of this mighty aircraft.

Don Pyeatt and Dennis R. Jenkins have done an admirable job in describing for readers the history of the B-36. There are also throughout the 240 pages, both color and black & white photographs of both the exterior and interior of this historic jet. This is something I believe would be of value to most modelers. The book also describes the changes the B-36 brought to Fort Worth, Texas.

In this new offering from Casemate Publishing, authors Thomas Newdick and Tom Cooper, provide the modern aviation enthusiast with two-hundred full color aircraft drawings and forty photographs of everything flown today by squadrons around the globe. In the one hundred and ninety-two informative pages, there are some fifty-thousand words of text providing information on not just the aircraft themselves, but also on the branch of service for the country using them. The book is logically divided up by regions for the chapters, and then by countries within the regions. The opening page for each chapter shows a color line-drawing map for the region with the counties being covered within shown, making the book educational for geography as well as for the aircraft.

The chapters, as mentioned, are broken into regions as follows:

In this new offering from Osprey Publishing, author Brad Elward (and Illustrator Paul Wright) introduce the reader to the fascinating world of the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. Having served aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), I quickly volunteered for this review when the book came out in a review list. As I possess a fair amount of knowledge on this subject myself, I am always looking to learn more about these magnificent ships, their history, and where the Navy plans to go in the future.

If you’re a military aviation geek like me, you can’t get enough of books like this. It chronicles the exploits of the authors as they deployed, fought, and returned home from Desert Shield / Desert Storm.

• Chapter 1 covers the history of the Wild Weasel program, including the origin of the now infamous “YGBSM” unofficial motto. They also get into the specific threats faced and the basics of how they can bring down enemy aircraft.
• Chapters 2, 3, and 4, detail the career paths of the authors and their training to become Wild Weasels.
• In chapters 5-16 every imaginable detail of the their exploits during Desert Shield / Desert Storm are chronicled.

Occasionally, it does tend to get very technical but there’s an excellent appendix that spells out the more complex Iraqi systems. The color plates are excellently done and the B & W are very well placed in the context of the mission descriptions.

Editor's note:This publication appears to be superseded by "Hawker Hurricane from 1937 to 1950" with same ISBN Number.

The Planes and Pilots book series published by Casemate on the British design and built Hawker Hurricane is number fourteen of the group. This eighty-three page book covers a decade of time, and Mr. Brefford’s attempt to cover reference material to attract both the historian and modeler is well done. He tells how Sir Sydney Camm was appointed Chief Engineer at Hawker and how the Hurricane aircraft became the direct decedent of the Hawker Fury. In just a few beginning pages are details covering the aircraft from design, prototype and beginning operational service status.