This book tells the story of the first fighter aircraft from Sweden’s SAAB. The unconventional, pusher propeller, twin boomed SAAB J-21 and its jet powered development, the J-21R As one who has a fondness for unusual aircraft I am really grateful to finally have a book that covers this aircraft.

The book begins with the development of the aircraft and its related systems. Of special importance was the development of an ejection seat so that the pilot could exit and clear the pusher propeller in an emergency. This is followed by operational histories of its use with the various squadrons. The coverage of the propeller driven J-21 concludes with 25 pages of color photos of the two surviving J-21s presented in a “walk-around” style. In addition to many fine exterior shots, there is extensive photo coverage of the cockpit. Lastly, we are treated to six pages of color profiles of various operational J-21s

The Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik was a ground-attack aircraft produced by the Soviet Union in the Second World War. Soviet sources give the number produced as over 36,000. It is regarded as the most formidable aircraft of WWII and best ground attack aircraft of all.

The aircraft’s engine, cockpit, radiators, and fuel tanks were protected by a steel “tub “designed to be an integral part of the load-bearing frame. This design made it ideal for its low-level ground attack and anti-tank roles.

The Il-2m3 (Type 3) version was introduced in 1943 in the battle of Stalingrad. It was so successful that the Soviets produced this version more than all the others. It was armed with two 23-mm Vya cannons and two 7.62-mm ShKAS machine guns in the wings. The rear gunner operated a 12.7-mm UBT machine gun. It could carry various combinations of rockets and bombs.

Editor's note: This kit is from Dragon's Cyber-Hobby line

Matt Swan keeps providing us with more modeling blessing on the 4^th installment of his instructional series. The scope of this set is water dioramas and salt chipping technique. The subject is a 1/48 Tamiya Rufe and a nice beach scene, including everything you can imagine, even scale fish in the water!

Towards the end of his 3^rd set, Matt shows how to build some simple bases to display your model. This time he goes into town showing step-by-step how to create a base, a sandy beach, foliage and more importantly: water. That is not all, as he will build a Japanese float-plane and show how to replicate paint chips using the ‘salt chipping’ technique.

Before showing how to build a diorama, Matt devotes some time to cover the tools and materials needed to build a diorama, including where you can get most of them and some comments regarding the cost of them.

This kit is listed as “My First Model Kit” and I wanted to get my grandson into modeling, so I thought this should be a good kit to introduce the hobby to my just turned 6 grandson. Well, things did not go as I had hoped. There are no age recommendations on the box, but most of the other kits on the shelf state 8 years old or older even for the snap tight kits. Now I know why. My grandson’s fine motor skills were not developed enough to handle a sprue cutter and his attention span was not long enough even to handle this kit (from start to finish no more than 2 hours). So I ended up finishing the model myself and getting him introduced to the painting and decal portion of the project. Below is listed what was done and how: