Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide

Only thing I miss, is to have a better glossary and possibility to find aircraft types quickly by sorting them by amount of engines, props etc.

This book is excellent for basics, but if you wish to be able to recognise all variants of some model, then I recommend something else. I doubt if there is any book that would give perfect data for spotting every variant of every model, that book would just be too heavy to take anywhere!


Misnamed recognition guide   October 8, 2003
 14 out of 17 found this review helpful

I am a keen aircraft spotter, but recent editions of this Guide are virtually useless for identification. Aircraft need to be grouped by shape - twin-boom/delta/single-engine/high-wing etc. -and the introduction of colour into the 2002 edition is a distraction. Come on, Jane's, back to basics or rename the book!


Good but could be better   February 23, 2003
 17 out of 20 found this review helpful

Fortunatly I was lucky enough to win a competition to get one of these books and I first saw the book at the farnborough airshow and I was seriously thinking about buying it. So when I won the competition I was glad I didnt. I was pretty pleased at first with the colour photos ,the silouhettes and a little look into the background of the aircraft. I do Aircraft recognition in the Air Training Corps(and been pretty successful)and I have an older edition of the recognition handbook(where the aircraft are divided by shape)which is good but lacks the newer aircraft but when it comes to using the new book its quite difficult to compare two similar looking aircraft because they are split by they're role and not the shape of the aircraft. So its made difficult to compare a 707 and E6B(but we use slides for added help). I think that if Janes returned to the old set up of defining aircraft by shape and not role ,it would be easier to learn from. So overall I probably would have bought it but lets hope Janes revert back to shape and not role in the next edition