Uncovering The Rockwell B-1B Lancer Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

The latest installment in DACO Publications' series of aircraft monographs covers the Rockwell B-1B Lancer. If you've seen the previous installments in the series, the F-16, F/A-18, F-14, T-38, then you already know how excellent this title is without further comment.

For the uninitiated in the series, each title provides an in-depth photo examination of the subject. And when I say in-depth, I mean they get some incredible photos in places I would never imagine! Every photo is clear and full-color, and there are nearly 200 photos in this title alone.

In the case of the B-1B, coverage begins with the nose section, fuselage fairing, wing area, wings and flaps, wing empennage, wing glove interior (!!), engine intakes & nacelles, engine exhaust, F-101-GE-102 engines, fuselage belly, ECM antennas, vertical tail, front cockpit, galley, aft cockpit, avionics & ECS bay, and much, much more. This is a detailed photo walk around with nice captions and diagrams to put the view into perspective.

I was especially fascinated with the coverage of the three weapons bays, the different types of rotary launchers for conventional and nuclear weapons, the bomb clip for early conventional weapons carriage, and a nice survey of the weapons cleared for use on the type.

I must say that the author has done an excellent job of covering this aircraft and both the aviation enthusiast and the modeler will enjoy pouring over the photos.

If you only want to buy one B-1B book for your library, this is the one. This title is highly recommended!

My sincere thanks to DACO Publications for this review sample!