For over 70 years from 1918 the worlds largest country was tightly controlled by a tiny group of elderly men in The Kremlin, in Moscow. Their power was absolute. They could take giant decisions, and so could make giant mistakes. They also sometimes found they had to choose between diametrically opposed objectives. While on the one hand aviation was a marvellous instrument for propaganda, trumpeting the achievements of the Soviet Union, the underlying theme of Soviet society was of rigid secrecy.
Thus, when The Great Patriotic War began on 22nd June 1941 the outside world knew very little about Soviet aircraft. The knowledge was confined largely to the mass-produced Polikarpov biplane fighters and Tupolev monoplane bombers, and to the ANT-25 monoplane designed to break world distance records. Only very gradually did it become apparent that the austere and sombre Land of the Soviets (this was the name of a record-breaking bomber) was home to an incredible diversity of aircraft.
This book is the most comprehensive attempt yet to collect the stories of the more important of X-Planes (experimental aircraft) into one volume.
