John W. R. Taylor

Who was John W. R. Taylor?

John William Ransom Taylor, OBE Hon DEng FRAeS FRHistS AFIAA, 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.