Flight Craft 1: Soviet Spyplanes of the Cold War

Spy in the Sky’ matters have long been a source of interest and fascination for aircraft enthusiasts, historians and modelers and none more so than the elusive and secretive Soviet types of the Cold War era. Yefim Gordon presents us here with a range of such types, presenting a collection of photographs, profiles and line drawings together with supplementary text detailing the history of each craft, encompassing the various developmental milestones, successes and pitfalls experienced along the way.

The Soviet Union’s two dedicated spy plane types, the Yakovlev Yak-25RV ‘Mandrake’ (the Soviet equivalent of the Lockheed U-2) and the MiG-25R ‘Foxbat’ are profiled, supplemented by details garnered from a host of original sources.

Well-illustrated histories and structural analyses are set alongside detailed descriptions of the various plastic scale model kits that have been released, along with commentary concerning their accuracy and available modifications and decals.

With an unparalleled level of visual information - paint schemes, models, line drawings and photographs - it is simply the best reference for any model-maker setting out to build a variant of this iconic craft.

Yefim Gordon was born in 1950 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He has been researching Soviet and Russian aviation history for more than 40 years and has one of the world's largest photograph and document archives on the subject. A professional aviation journalist and photographer since 1989, Yefim Gordon has published hundreds of features and photographs in Soviet, Russian and foreign aviation magazines. He has also authored and co-authored well over 100 books on Soviet and Russian aviation which are published in seven countries. He is a co-owner of the Moscow-based aviation publishing house Polygon Press Ltd. He is the author of previous titles in the Flight Craft series, Russian Gunship Helicopters and Soviet Spyplanes of the Cold War (both published by Pen and Sword Aviation in 2013).