Fighters for the Eastern Front - Hurricanes, Airacobras, and the Soviet adaptation of Western desig

The second volume of this four-part series explores in detail the Lend-Lease fighter aircraft supplied to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Drawing on Soviet archives, Allied records, and first-hand accounts, aviation historian Vladimir Kotelnikov provides the most comprehensive study to date of the British and American fighters that flew on the Eastern Front. The volume covers the deployment and operational use of the British Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, alongside American aircraft including the Curtiss P-40, Bell P-39 Airacobra, and later the P-63 Kingcobra. Kotelnikov examines the numbers delivered, the routes by which they reached the Soviet Union, and the combat units to which they were assigned. He describes the training and retraining of Soviet pilots, the adaptation of tactics to the characteristics of each design, and the logistical challenges of maintaining foreign-built aircraft in frontline conditions. Soviet evaluations of the aircraft are presented in detail, from the rugged P-39, prized for its heavy armament and low-altitude performance, to the Hurricane, whose obsolescence became painfully clear in combat, and the Spitfire, admired for its handling yet limited in Soviet service. First-hand combat reports and pilot testimonies bring these assessments vividly to life, showing how Western fighters fared against the Luftwaffe in the unforgiving skies of the Eastern Front. Illustrated with colour profiles, hundreds of rare photographs, original documents, and technical tables, this volume provides a richly detailed portrait of how Lend-Lease fighters contributed to Soviet air power. It shows not only their operational impact but also how their service influenced Soviet thinking about aircraft design and doctrine in the years that followed. AUTHOR: Vladimir Kotelnikov was born in Moscow on 9 December 1951. He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute (University) in 1975 and was engaged in research and development in the area of high-temperature strength. Vladimir defended the academic degree of the Candidate of Science in 1981 and read lectures on aircraft piston engine design at the Moscow Aviation Institute. Since the 1980s Kotelnikov has conducted archive research on the history of Russian aviation of the inter-war and Second World War periods. In addition, he paid specific attention to the history of foreign aircraft testing and operations in Russia. As the result of his work he published several hundred articles and dozens of books in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States, among them Lend-Lease and Soviet Aviation, Americans in Russia, Russian Piston Aero Engines, Early Russian Jet Engines, Air War Over Khalkhin Gol, Le Petlyakov Pe-2 and others. Being an aviation historian, he received a diploma as a professor of the Academy of Aviation and Aeronautics Science and currently acts as a consultant on piston aero engine design to Russian aviation museums as well as to different aircraft restoration groups. From 2003 Vladimir held the post of an editor of the Aviakollektsiya aviation history journal, published in Moscow. He passed away in 2022. 255 b/w photos, 8pp colour profiles, 1 b/w map