The Book

Kagero Publishing of Poland has a series of photo books called Topshots. They feature lots of photos of a single subject and include a decal sheet.

This book contains photos of Su-22s in Polish Air Force service. It’s got one page of history in English, and 47 pages of photographs, many with details you’re not going to find in any other published source. The photos are all well printed in color.

The decal sheet has all the markings required for two Su-22M-4s of the 7th Air Support Squadron in 1/48 and 1/72. The back cover of the book gives the color and marking placement for 9101, which is on the decal sheet. Photos of 8206, the other aircraft, are also included.

The Aircraft/Models

The Su-22 is the export version of the Su-17. There are some external differences between the two aircraft, but nothing extreme. The Su-22 was exported to Poland, Angola, Libya, Vietnam, and Yemen, all currently operating the type. 21 other countries have used the Su-22 but have retired it.

Models of the Su-17/20/22 are kind of hard to find. Academy has a 1/144 kit, Eduard has done a lot of work on the old KP 1/48 kit (it’s a limited availability item), and Italeri/Bilek had one in 1/72 they released about 10 years ago. Eastern Express (also released by Smer and Pantera) and Hobbycraft also had 1/72 kits, but I found low availability on these.

Overall Evaluation

Recommended, especially if you’re interested in all of those tiny little details that are so hard to find on the internet.

This book will be very useful to me some day, as I do have two 1/72 Pantera kits of the Su-17/22. I have used Kagero decals before, and found them to be very good and easy to use

Thanks to Casemate Publishing for providing this review copy, and to IPMS/USA for letting me review it.