Military Model Scene

Title: British Reconnaissance Aircraft of the 1970s and '80s
Author: Chris Goss
Publisher: Key Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-80282-197-0

A fourth title in this series of photo books covering the aircraft of the Cold War era in service with the RAF and Royal Navy. A small format 96-page soft-cover book packed with archive images.
After a short Forward and an Introduction from the author, the bulk of the book is split across 4 chapters, one each to cover the Canberra, Gannet, Nimrod and Shackleton. Each one contains a series of images, each one with some informative captions, and each showing views of so many complete aircraft while they were in service, and some more detailed images illustrating fine detail such as squadron badges. A good mix of variants of each type are included, such as the varied nose layouts of the Canberra, the early and later Gannet variants, Nimrods and of course the long service career of the Shackleton. I was interested to read in so many captions how it tells us the fate of so many aircraft, as while some rest in museum collections today, some have had their cockpit sections saved while the remainder of the airframe has been scrapped, or what so many aircraft enthusiasts will be sad about, that once out of service, many ended their days on airfield fire dumps, where they were used for vital training. Throughout the book the pictures are a mix of both black & white and colour images, but all great to see.
A marvellous collection of photos. One Gannet in particular attracted my attention, as it shows Gannet T.5 XG883 which is now a complete airframe at the Museum of Berkshire Aviation at Woodley in Berkshire, where I am one of their regular volunteers. Lots of detail in these pictures, which I am sure will interest aircraft enthusiasts, modellers and of course those ex-service personnel who may well see aircraft they once worked on/in.
Thanks to Pen & Sword, who are distributors for these Key Publishing books, for the review copy.

Robin