Warbird Recovery: The Hunt for a Rare World War II Plane in Siberia, Russia Paperback – 18 April 2007

If you ever dreamed as I have when I was a kid about finding warbirds around the world and restoring them then this book is for you.As a child I had a dream that I would go back in time and shrink hundreds of warbirds with my shrink ray and hide them in the back yard of our cabin up north. I knew that they would be safe there and when I dug them up I would bring them to an airport line them up and unshrink them. Sounds, corny I know but a kid can dream can't he/she? This was also back in the late 70's and early 80's when the warbird movement was just beginning and model building was still something a child did versus video gaming..It was also great to know that I am not alone and others share my dreams. The stories of reading the WWII aviation books in the libraries, playing with models as a kid brought back memories of my own. Memories which I still hold dear to my heart.Get this book if you are a dreamer and want to live vicariously through Mike, Darryl, or Gordon as they travel through Russian attempting to make their dreams come true.Keep the Dream Alive!Great Book!

good

A very well written first person account of a difference in cultures. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down.I will be going to Siberia in the very near future and this book gave me some great insight.Thank God our Russian hosts are taking care of everything. I hope I don't have to bring a suitcase full of cash to get out again.

In my last career I was a pilot and while I changed career paths years ago I still fly light aircraft and am a warbird enthusiast. Because of that I was looking forward to reading this book and while it didn't disappoint it was at times a bit frustrating.One nit pick is the photographs, they're so small that you can't make out a lot of detail in them and I was fascinated to see what the author was talking about. They should have been bigger, and they're should have been many more of them.Another thing that struck me was the kind of haphazard way the author and his partners went about trying to buy warbird wrecks. At times they really seemed like the Keystone Cops and I was amazed that they actually ended up with anything at all. I know it's difficult to do business in Russia, but I think they made it even harder than it had to be.Still, they did end up with one-and-a-half BF109's which is quite a feat. For anyone who knows warbirds it's one of the rarest of the rare and to have even one potentially salvageable airframe is incredible. The only thing that disappointed me was that they apparently haven't yet been able to restore what they have into one, or maybe even two, flyable aircraft. A great ending to this story would be to see one of these aircraft back in the air again. I'm sure the author couldn't agree more!All in all an interesting, sometimes funny, and entertaining read. If your at all interesting in warbirds and how people end up coming by them this is a must read.

If you are hoping for an adventure in the tradition of Glacier Girl or Kee Bird, you will be disappointed. There is no `recovery' here, and there is precious little else. Pursuing a childhood dream, the author travels to Eastern Europe in search of a vintage aeroplane to restore. Lured by fables of abandoned warbirds requiring little more than fuel and a favourable wind to recover, he hopes to exploit the locals' ignorance in acquiring one for himself but instead is fleeced and swindled at every turn by unscrupulous middle-men and opportunistic officials. There is very little here about aircraft, aviation or adventure, and while a competent story-teller might have spun it into a good yarn, it's clear Page is no writer. The result is an amateurish, blow-by-blow account of not very much at all.