Cold War Jet Combat: Air-to-Air Jet Fighter Operations 1950-1972

By Martin Bowman

Recounted here are nine of the earliest wars involving jet aircraft. From the Korean War and beyond, it comprises a wealth of gripping insight. Many of the jet-to-jet dogfights that spanned these jet-powered wars are enlivened to thrilling effect, including those engaged in during the two Indo-Pak Wars of 1965 and 1971.

Operation ‘Musketeer’ (1956), mounted when RAF and French Air Force bombers and fighter-bombers attacked airfields and other targets in Egypt (after President Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal), is also covered in this gripping narrative. The Falklands Campaign is also covered, as is the Vietnam War.

In another chapter, QRA operations around the British Isles are put under the microscope as RAF Phantoms, Lightnings, Tornadoes and Typhoon Eurofighters on Quick Reaction Alert are described, patrolling international air space and maintaining a constant vigil as Soviet ‘Bears’ continued to test NATO defences.

All in all, this is a compelling, well-researched and highly informative study of a particularly dynamic era in aviation history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Jan 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473874626

Martin Bowman

Martin Bowman is the author of sixty aviation books on military subjects. His interest in World War II was fired by the proliferation of US and RAF air bases in his native East Anglia. His quest has taken him to eighteen countries including the USA, Africa, Australia and Russia. He has flown into the world's war zones of Mogadishu, Somalia and Bosnia…and he has even been catapulted from the USS John F Kennedy! Martin has also been appointed as official researcher for DERA.