Tupolev Tu-95/-142 'Bear': Russia's Intercontinental-Range Heavy Bomber

by Vladimir Rigmant, Jay Miller, Yefim Gordon

Release Date: January, 1998

Edition: Paperback

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Another Fine Aerofax Book

Yefim Gordon and Vladimir Rigant's TUPOLEV TU-95 / -142 "BEAR" is a
history and description of the famous Soviet Bear bomber (Tu-95) and
maritime patrol aircraft (Tu-142), which became a prominent symbol of
Soviet power with its swept wings and four huge Kuznetsov turboprops,
driving oversized threshing contrarotating propellers. What other
machine could so vividly represent the Russian "Bear" itself?

Soviet / Russian aircraft have long been poorly known in the West, and
such documentation as has been available on them has long been flawed
by errors and misunderstandings. This makes a book like BEAR very
valuable, as it obviously contains almost exhaustive material from
primary sources, covering in detail the Tu-95 and Tu-142 itself, plus
the similar Tu-114 airliner and Tu-126 AWACS aircraft, as well as
special variants such a flying laboratory carrying a nuclear reactor.

BEAR is thoroughly illustrated, mostly with black and white
photographs (including a "walk-around" chapter on the aircraft), but
does include a section of color photographs (including some nice shots
of the aircraft's interior, painted in the pleasant turquoise favored
by the Soviets) and an end section with engineering-style 3-view and
(mostly) profile illustrations.

However, BEAR does suffer from one serious flaw: the authors need to
take writing courses. As a reference work to be consulted, BEAR is
fine, but it's simply not the sort of thing that is easily read from
end to end. I have seen other books that Yefim Gordon has had a hand
in and always think he misses some obvious bets. Adding things like a
short introductory chapter to give a overview of the aircraft,
essentially providing a "roadmap" for the reader, and providing
comparable introductory sections to chapters would be a big help.

Another helpful thing would be to sort out all the minor variants and
consolidate them into separate chapters, instead of forcing readers to

wade through a stream of information and letting them try to sort out
the big picture on their own. I had to laugh at the "evolutionary
chart" of the Bear family on page 31, which was so convoluted that it
looked like one of those "joke" orgcharts that show up in cartoons --
it even had *loops* in it. Apparently Mr. Gordon has troubles with
the basic notion of technical writing that a workable, easily
understood simplification is preferable to the full eye-glazing truth
-- and all the fine details can be provided later in the fine print if
need be. At least the evolutionary chart gave a bit of humor, however
unintentional, to BEAR.

To be sure, this is a good book. It just could have been better. If
you want to know about the Bear -- this is the place to go.