PWS14, PWS 16, PWS 16 BIS, PWS 26, PWS 18 (AVRO 621) (Polish Wings)

The book examines pre-war Polish advanced trainers from the PWS company. These attractive aircraft trained class after class of new Polish pilots and helped restructure the Polish Air Force during the 1920s and 1930s. As with most trainers, the PWS aircraft have often been overlooked in aviation texts, but this book changes all that with page after page of photos, illustrations, and text. The authors have done an excellent job of collecting information and presenting it in an easy to read format, which is good as this is likely to be the only monograph on these aircraft. As a trainer aircraft, their history is fairly sedate, as is their markings. The photos reveal the latter quite well, with the vast majority of these trainers finished in overall green. Subtle differences in the details, though, make the individual aircraft stand out, and the color illustrations bring these differences are to light. In addition to the various Polish examples, this book also shows a handful of foreign PWS operators, including Romania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. For those interested in small air forces, this is an excellent series, and the latest title continues the high quality seen in previous editions.