Books on the Sukhoi Su-25 "Frogfoot"

Airlife "Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot"

     Subtitled "Close Air Support Aircraft" this book of 175 pages was published in 2004 and written by the prolific Yefim Gordon and Alan Dawes. ISBN 1 84037 353 9 I picked mine up cheaply from EBay in August 2006. This book nicely traces the history of this aircraft back to its dim, distant ancestor - the Word War 2 Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik. Through ample and surprising photographic evidence Yefim shows clear lineage back to the Il-2 with some surprising machines in between. After that good start the book does descend into the "worthy but dull" segment with an awful lot of text punctuated with largely uninformative black and white photo's. There is a center section of just 7 pages of colour photo's but that is about it. No line drawings, no sketches, no colour profiles and no scale plans make this a very unexceptional read. I am sure there is better reference material out there. I would suggest that you look elsewhere if you want a good book before building a model of the Frogfoot. There are a few useful photo's though so it doesn't go entirely amiss. Pick it up cheap off of EBay if you can. Otherwise don't bother unless this really is all you can find on the topic.

Squadron/Signal "Su-25 Frogfoot" In Action nbr 129

     Squadron/Signal Publications' "Su-25 Frogfoot in action" Aircraft Number 129. Published in 1992 and written by Hans-Heiri Stapfer. ISBN 0-89747-287-X. Illustrated by Don Geer, Tom Tullis and Joe Sewell. The influence of the first Gulf War can clearly be seen in Don's fanciful artwork which has always been too bleached and "cartoony" for my liking. It looks very dated in comparison to some artworks we see these days. Just look at the work on the modern Kagero covers by way of comparison. You get 50 pages of black and white photo's with line drawings & written history. You get the usual sketches illustrating type development - always good to see and practically never seen anywhere else. There are two pages of colour profiles at the center. This is typical Squadron/Signal Publications "In Action" stuff - dated but still miles better than the Airlife book. Recommended.

"Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot" Sergey Skrynnikov

     ISBN 962 361 716 X. Published in 1994 by Concord Publications. Now this is a nice book. Every photograph is in full colour throughout. This is not necessarily aimed at the Model maker as there are no scale plans, no artwork and no line drawings whatsoever. Instead you get 94 pages packed with colour photo's. Text is in English and kept to an absolute minimum being mostly just captions to the photo's. Although there is no attempt at a deliberate 'walkaround', there is a good number of close-up shots of the airframe showing such things as weapons and airbrakes. The book was compiled in the early nineties. We treat such access to Russian Aircraft with familiarity these days but it must have been quite the novelty back thirteen years ago. Hence you even see pictures of ground-crew painting their first pre-revolutionary Russian Flags onto the tails of their Frogfoots! Remarkable for its time. It looks as if they went to every Russian Su-25 Unit in the book - so many unusual airframes are covered including Czech and Ukrainian aircraft. There is a good sprinkling of air-to-air shots as well. Nice to see. It really sets this book apart. Some very colourful Su-25's appear too and the photo's were compiled over several years. You get to see the colourful Su-25K "9013", with its distinctive frog-camouflage, that visited Boscombe Down in 1992. I doubt whether many of these schemes have appeared in decal form so this would be great material for the obscurist - details in the photo's are brilliant. There is a significant section on the UB Two Seater if that is your favourite - you won't be disappointed. The Navalised version - the UTG - also gets good coverage over several pages with large colour photo's onboard aircraft carriers. Several pages are devoted to the Su-25T "Improved Frogfoot". Finally the books closes with some good cockpit shots and the aerobatic Frogfoot display team - The Celestial Hussars. Thoroughly recommended. Difficult to find but keep an eye open on EBay.