Review

Sukhoi Su-15 the Boeing killer is a book from publishersPenn & Swordis a softback book with a glued spine and pagination of 69 and it has two authors Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov

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.

Dmitriy Komissarov was born in 1969 in Moscow and graduated from the Moscow State Linguistic University in 1992. He has worked as a translator ever since, with most of his work associated with his interest in aviation. Dmitriy has authored two books and translated or co-authored more than 50 others, as well as writing numerous magazine features in two languages on soviet and Russian aviation.

Contents

Introduction

The Su-15 is born

Experimental Versions and Testbeds

Unbuilt Projects

The Su-15 in Action

The Su-15 in Detail

The Modellers Corner

The Su-15 in Colour

Line Drawings

The book like most books starts with the introduction which gives you some insight into the Sukhoi-15, after its resurrection in 1953 under the new number OKB-51, experimental design bureau the Moscow Based design office headed by Pavel O. Sukhoi. Pavel started work in two main areas, developing a supersonic tactical fighter for the Soviet Air Force and a supersonic interceptor for the Air Defence Force. It goes on in some detail about how it started following a long line of Sukhoi planes which had been used to good effect for some years.

The Su-15 is born, this is a fascinating chapter showing some of the aircraft in the design and onto prototype form, T58D-1 with the appropriate' and no standard tactical code 58-1 Red during initial flight tests with two K8M1P anti-air missiles. The prototype had a much smaller radome than the production Su-15s. The book on chapter 1, has been very well researched and plenty of information on its birth and what it started as to the final prototypes and finally the first full production aircraft.

I was somewhat surprised at chapter 2, being the experimental versions and testbeds which I thought had quite a lot of information on in chapter 1. There it is the word being thought as what the new chapter had included was a quite amazing amount of information like, between 1966 to 1975 several Su-15s were used in various research and development programmes – mostly as avionics and equipment testbeds. Verifying items which found use on later versions of the Flagon 26, for aviation historians/followers of aviation, this section of the book will be very useful for them.

A small section on unbuilt projects is followed by The Su-15 in Action, on the 9th of July 1967 huge crowds flocked to the Moscow's Domodedovo airport for the first military airshow in six years and the first chance for members of the public to see the Su-15 in flight.
This is section is picture heavy and includes some fantastic colour pictures of the flagon some good reference points for the modeller and aviation enthusiast alike a couple of these caught my eye one in a darkened outline in a sunset picture another one was a Su -15 coming into land and deploying his shoot in stunning background.

The Su-15 in detail is a walk around showing some close-up pictures including cockpit, armament, open maintenance hatches showing parts of the engine plenty of pictures for the modeller to add detail to any kit be it aftermarket or scratch built parts.

The last section of the book is the modeller's corner where it shows you all of the models that are available on the Su-15, this section is a fantastic section for any modeller and showed me that I was unaware of just how many kits on the Su-15 were available. I am lucky to have one of the Trumpeter 1/48th scales the Su-15 TM Flagon-F which I will use this book to help produce a near as realistic a model as possible. This is a section full of pictures of the finished model kits four in 1/48th scale one from, Collect-Aire Models and one I have not heard of before but looked good in the build pictures.
Three 1/48th scale Trumpeter kits
Seven 1/72nd scale various manufacturers

Conclusion

This is a very good book which is very informative for both modellers and aviation/ historians enthusiasts, it is easy to follow and certainly contains a lot more information on the history of the subject, in this case, is the Su-15 than other modelling books. In my experience with some of the other modelling books, you do not get the in-depth history and pictures of the original of the subject. Thus making this one particular series of books especially prominent for those interested in the history of the subject slightly more than of other modelling types of books.
I do have another one of these flight craft books for review which will be interesting to see if it is done in the same way or more like the other modelling books to see if this is the way that the flight craft books are made.