Britain’s Cold War Fighters explores the creation and development of the jet fighter, tracing the emergence of the first jet designs (the Meteor and Vampire) through to the first-generation jets which entered service with the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. Each aircraft type will be examined, looking at how the design was created and how this translated into an operational aircraft. The basic development and service history of each type will be examined, with a narrative that links the linear appearance of each new design, leading to the present day and the latest generation of Typhoon aircraft. Other aircraft types explored will include Hunter, Lightning, Phantom, Javelin and Tornado F2/3. A beautiful and comprehensive study of the UK’s design and manufacture of its fighter programme from the end of the Second World War to present, Britain’s Cold War Fighters is of much importance to aviation and military historians, modellers as well as those interested in the growing popularity of the Cold War. Highly illustrated with many unpublished photos, interviews and eyewitness accounts, this an ideal companion piece to Fonthill Media’s Britain’s Cold War Bombers and is the subject of a BBC documentary currently in commission.

A comprehensive study of Britain's fighters in the post-war era including the much loved Hunter, Lightning, Phantom, Javelin and Tornado.

Britain’s Cold War Bombers explores the creation and development of the jet bomber, tracing the emergence of the first jet designs (the Valiant and Vulcan) through to the first-generation jets which entered service with the R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm. Each aircraft type will be examined, looking at how the design was created and how this translated into an operational aircraft. The basic development and service history of each type will be examined, with a narrative which links the linear appearance of each new design, leading to the present day and the latest generation of Typhoon aircraft. Other aircraft types explored will include the Canberra, Sperrin, Victor, Scimitar, Buccaneer, Nimrod, Phantom, Sea Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado GR1/4 and Typhoon. Illustrations: 200 black-and-white and 50 color photographs

Detailed profile artworks and descriptions of 14 different RAF jet aircraft types.

Mr. Greer outlines the not well-known aircraft and activities of the United States Air Force's all-weather fighters during the first part of the Cold War. He covers the organization, development and decline of the all-weather force in response to the Soviet Union's long-range strategic bomber force equipped with atomic weapons. The author describes not only the individual aircraft from the early night fighters of World War II through the F-106A of the seventies and beyond but also the control organization that directed them until the whole operation was made superfluous by the ballistic missile standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in the latter half of the Cold War.

'Thinking the Unthinkable' is the result of ten years of sporadic research, involving many visits to the former German Democratic Republic by a small Anglo/German team of military specialists. Their purpose was to explore the lives of RAF and East German fighter and fighter-bomber pilots, in the air and on the ground, at work and play, during the Cold War in North Germany. The book is based largely on personal testimony from these pilots, coupled with facts drawn from official archives and comment from other historical sources. Where possible, political considerations have been avoided and no outright criticism has been intended, readers being left to draw their own conclusions on the thinking, strategies, equipment and tactics discussed. Far from being an intellectual polemic on the Cold War, the text and photographs merely record a slice of history as seen through the eyes of a select few who took up arms in the defence of their respective homelands - and faced each other daily across the Iron Curtain. Nigel Walpole passed out from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1954, and joined No.26 (Day Fighter) Squadron, flying Hunter F.4s on the front line in Germany at RAF Oldenburg. In 1957 he converted to the Swift FR.5, on No.79 (Fighter Reconnaissance) Squadron, and in 1959 began an exchange posting with the USAF at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, flying RF-101 Voodoos in the tactical reconnaissance role. On return to the UK in 1961, he was posted to the Central Fighter Establishment, where he was promoted to squadron leader and given command of No.234 Squadron, equipped with Hunter F.6 and Hunter DFGA 9 aircraft. He returned to Germany in 1965, to command No.2 Squadron, flying Hunter FR.10s committed to armed reconnaissance. This was followed by two years on the Fighter Command Tactical Evaluation team, before promotion to wing commander and an appointment to 16 Parachute Brigade, as the Brigade Air Support Officer (BASO) - this giving him a good perspective of the British Army's use of air power. Staff training at the National Defence College followed a short spell in command of No.12 Squadron, operating overland and maritime strike/attack Buccaneers, followed by a staff appointment at the MOD in London, before he returned to the front line in Germany as Officer Commanding Strike Wing, flying Jaguar GR.1s at RAF Bruggen. Promoted to group captain, he ended his military career in 1988 with four years as Assistant Chief of Staff (Offensive) in the NATO HQ at Rheindahlen, Germany. He then joined British Aerospace as its air weapons advisor, before retiring to take a university degree, and thereafter to write a series of books and articles on the Cold War - as seen from the flight line. He now lives with his Dutch-born wife in Suffolk, UK.

The West was stunned when the Soviet Union dropped its first atomic bomb in August 1949 and a year later the Korean War showcased Russia’s incredible technological progress in the form of the MiG-15 – a fighter capable of besting anything the RAF had to offer at that time. In the wake of the Second World War, funding for the RAF’s Fighter Command had fallen away dramatically but now there was an urgent need for new jet fighters to meet the threat of Russian bombers head-on. Britain’s top aircraft manufacturers, including Hawker, English Electric, Fairey, Vickers Supermarine, De Havilland, Armstrong Whitworth and Saunders-Roe, set to work on designing powerful supersonic aircraft with all-new guided missile systems capable of meeting a Soviet assault and shooting down high-flying enemy aircraft before they could unleash a devastating nuclear firestorm on British soil. The result was some of the largest, heaviest and most powerful fighter designs the world had ever seen – and a heated debate about whether the behemoths should be built at all as guided weapons became ever more advanced. This is the story of Britain’s secret cold war fighter jet designs, fully illustrated with a host of drawings, illustrations and photographs.