This title may well be one of the most difficult ever reviewed on our site, as it is difficult to find anything charitable at all to say about the research comprising it. Despite the fact that author Stockton has an obvious command of the Russian language, and access to at least some quality Soviet records and documentation, these appear to have affected his work not in the slightest. Red Beauty spans 119 type-written pages, several tables, and 14 pages of line drawings. There are no illustrations.
The first full 50 pages of text have, curiously, nothing whatever to do with the aircraft from whom the book takes its name; instead, Stockton subjects the reader to a personal political primer about the conditions and developments in the USSR to 1940. The content, tone, and sheer avalanche of stereotypical misconception displayed here is extraordinary, not to mention that it is in no way relevant to subject title. Starting with the second half of the book, the author then proceeds to apply the same technique to the development and design of the Yak-1 and -7 fighters. These sections are so replete with factual and conceptual errors so as to constitute a backwards step in the historical effort to understand these aircraft. Lastly, the author has generously copied and reproduced scale and detail line drawings from the Soviet aviation modeling journal Modelist Konstruktur , though nowhere does one read any acknowledgment of this fact, nor permission for the copyrights for these drawings.
Red Beauty represents a very discouraging look at a very fascinating aviation subject. Sadly, we are forced to conclude that this work should be avoided altogether.