[Jukka Juutinen]

Jim, I have not read the first one, but others I have. In fact, he has also written at least 3 more books. Anyway, Wings of the Navy&Luftwaffe are basically compilations of his old articles from Air International. Each article has a data box, a cutaway drawing, some illustrations and good text that concentrates on the flying characteristics and his personal experiences with these aircraft. Very well written, with often humourous remarks in the best British style. He is quite objective, though apparently he refused to respond to Heinrich Beauvais´s criticism of his remarks on the Bf 109. Similarly he condems the SB2C too easily as he flew only the early variants.
Still, I consider these essential books, if one does not have a huge bunch of Air Internationals from the 1970s and 1980s.

Duels in the Sky is a general book on the topic, with his personal assesment of various naval aircraft thrown in. He e.g. lists best naval fighters, best naval dive bombers and so on. A very interesting book.


Then he wrote the twin volume Wings of the Weird&Wonderful. These books have shorter, about 3-10 page articles on various aircraft he flew that were not covered in the previous 2 Wings volumes. These range from the better known a/c like the Mustang to rarer ones like the Fairey Spearfish. Some early jets (e.g. Sabre, Vampire) are covered too. In total, about 320 pages in medium format. Good books as well.

His lalest book, as far as I know, is Testing for Combat. This actually follows the above format, but features aircraft like Ar 240, Siebel 204, Liberator, Grumman Guardian, La-7, Panther etc. A good book as well. Here one may criticise his comments e.g. on the La-7 for he praises its handling qualities, but then claims it has no pilot armour and even claims that the two cannon armament is poor. This in light of his claims how the 4 machine guns in some Wildcats had excellent firepower...