Название: F-117 Stealth Fighter Units of Operation Desert Storm
Автор: Warren Thompson Mark Styling
Издательство: Osprey Publishing
Серия: Osprey Combat Aircraft 68
ISBN: 978 1846031823
Год издания: 2007
Язык: English
Cтраниц: 96
Формат: True PDF
Размер: 4,6 MB
I find it difficult to believe that early F-117s are being retired from service; it doesn't seem that long ago that the first fuzzy images were being pored over by enthusiasts, modellers and kit manufacturers - the latter not always successfully. The Wobblin Goblin's finest hour was probably Operation Desert Storm, and it is the events of 1991 that are the core of this 68th book in Osprey's Combat Aircraft series. A very brief account of the type's development precedes the tale of the '117's deployment to Saudi Arabia in late 1990, and the operational accounts that follow are as comprehensive - and in many cases as enlightening - as we have come to expect from Osprey. There are 21 colour profiles, which carry tailcodes and mission marks, and two further pages show the 21 pieces of artwork carried on the weapons bay doors (an A2 poster version would, I am sure, find a home on many walls). I've not seen many of these designs reproduced in decal form, especially in 1:72, but I live in hope. Appendices give the details of operations in the first and last 10 days of Desert Storm, and a list of participating pilots and their Bandit numbers. There are two pages of line drawings in 1:96 scale, but in my copy at least the lines delineating the plan views are so fine as to be almost invisible. Several of the illustrative photographs are in colour and will be useful for modellers, particularly for showing the colours of the ordnance used. The '117, partly I suspect because of its initial shroud of secrecy, and partly because of its futuristic shape - I think I remember something very similar in the Dan Dare pages of Eagle - has always had a charisma of its own, and if the effects of secrecy have been seriously eroded by now, the charisma remains. Warren Thompson's account of the Nighthawks fulfilling their role is interesting and instructive, and is highly recommended.