Accurate drawings, including several cutaway diagrams, and detailed performance statistics provide a pictorial and descriptive survey of combat aircraft since the First World War.
book is arranged by manufacturer and aircraft. Many schematic pages illustrate the component structure of aircraft such as the Mustang, Spitfire, and the Messerschmitt fighter evolution from the BF109. MIG 15, 19, and 21. Factory records give interesting number and date information as well as sales…includes history of design, prototypes, first flight, performance, engines, armament, production numbers, and deployment.
…overview of the main types of combat aircraft in use from WW1 to the mid 1970's. Although time has dated it severely (the F-15, 16 and 18 were new when it was written, for example) it provides accurate descriptions and technical data for those aircraft in active use prior to its publication. reasonable-sized reference for the period 1914-1975. Types regarded as "classics" are accorded a two-page cutaway. Other less classical aircraft are accorded colour (or sometimes B&W) diagrams/pictures, although there are no photographs as such. Less common types get 3-view line drawings. Information given for each type includes a description of the aircraft's development and/or combat history (if they saw combat, which some between-wars types did not), a description of most major subtypes and information as to technical detail such as armament, physical dimensions, weights and so on.

In many respects a companion book to the Salamander/Spring Books "Encyclopedia of Air Warfare" and stablemate to "Encyclopedia of Combat Aircraft of World War Two".