John WR Taylor Signed Letter Historical Aviation Expect

Description

John William Ransom Taylor (8 June 1922 - 12 December 1999) was a British aviation expert and editor. He edited
Jane's All the World's Aircraft
for three decades during
the Cold War
. He retired as editor in 1989, just as the
Iron Curtain
obscuring the
Soviet Bloc's
technology started to lift.
Taylor, who lived to the age of 77, was a master of a parallel art to
Kremlinology
, he could deduce the performance of
Soviet military
equipment from blurred photographs.
"Thus in 1961, when
Western intelligence
was fascinated by early glimpses of a new Soviet bomber, the
Tupolev Tu-22
, many
analysts
estimated it could reach a speed of
Mach 2
.5 - more than twice the
speed of sound
. But Taylor, after noting the shape of the aircraft's engine intakes, put the maximum at no more than Mach 1.4, which proved much closer to the truth. In 1983, he analysed the
MiG-29
fighter, whose agility was the cause of much anxiety amongst
NATO's
war-gamers
; seven years later, when
Jane's
was able to check his suggested measurements, they were found to be accurate to within an inch. "
The Guardian
, Tuesday 25 January 2000.
Taylor was educated at
Ely Cathedral
Choir School (
King's School, Ely
) and
Soham
Grammar School
in
Cambridgeshire
. He trained as a
draughtsman
and joined
Hawker Aircraft
in 1941. There he worked on the development of the
Hurricane fighter
and its successors. His specialisation was rectifying design defects. He joined Jane's as editorial assistant on Jane's All the World's Aircraft in 1955 and four years later he took over as editor. Until the late 1960s he edited this volume with virtually no editorial support but his love of aviation was such that this was a challenge he enjoyed.