Brought out in the late 1970s as a successor to the obsolete Tu-126 airborne early warning aircraft, the A-50 co-developed by the Il'yushin and Beriyev bureaux is one of the most interesting military variants in the field of IL-76 military transport. Differing outwardly from the latter mainly in having a conventional "saucer" rotodome, the A-50 entered flight testing in 1980; the new Soviet AWACS entered service four years later. The improved A-50M was developed several years after that. The type continues in service with the Russian Air Force today, and the fleet is being upgraded to A-50U standard. This book describes the A-50's thrilling developmental history, taking in its many variants (including the A-50EI export model for India) and gives an extensive overview of the various scale model kits covering the subject currently available on the market. AUTHOR: Yefim Gordon was born in 1950 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He has been researching Soviet and Russian aviation history for more than 40 years and has one of the world's largest photograph and document archives on the subject. A professional aviation journalist and photographer since 1989, Yefim Gordon has published hundreds of features and photographs in Soviet, Russian and foreign aviation magazines. He has also authored and co-authored well over 100 books on Soviet and Russian aviation which are published in seven countries. He is a co-owner of the Moscow-based aviation publishing house Polygon Press Ltd. He is the author of previous titles in the Flight Craft series, Russian Gunship Helicopters and Soviet Spyplanes of the Cold War (both published by Pen and Sword Aviation in 2013).
