Following up the first book in this series, The Russian Aviation Colours 1909-1922: Camouflage and Markings, Vol. 1 Early Years, comes MMP’s latest tome. This book, focused on the ‘Great War’ is planned to be followed by at least two additional volumes on ‘Red Stars’ (Volume 3), and ‘Against Soviets’ (Volume 4). The authors leaned heavily on Russian private archives, as well as archives, libraries, and museums.

The book is a nice hardbound, with a nice glossy cover, and 176 pages on high-quality stock with a matt finish. Mainly clear black and white period photos are supplemented with modern day color photos, color period posters and postcards, color side and top views, and color unit emblems and personal markings. The text is in English and quite readable.

This kit is a re-release from Hasegawa of the #38 Denso sponsored Toyota 88C that ran in the 1989 Le Mans race. The car finished in 53rd place and did not finish the race due to a crash. This is a curbside kit and has no engine or suspension details.

Kit

The kit comes packaged in the usual Hasegawa cardboard box and contains 1 bag of clear parts with the tire marking decal sheet inside and 1 bag of white parts with 4 rubber tires and polycaps separately bagged inside of it. There is a total of 7 sprues of white parts plus the chassis and body and 1 sprue of clear parts. All together there are 97 parts in this kit, although 14 of those parts are for other versions of the car. My kit had quite a bit of flash on the parts, but none that was difficult to remove. Just be careful to clean up the parts before assembly. There were also some ejector pin marks that will need to be taken care of or they will be seen.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Gladiator, as in my opinion it is one of the best looking biplane aircraft ever designed. The Gladiator prototype first flew in 1934 and entered service in 1937, just a year and a half ahead of the Hawker Hurricane. The Gladiator was utilized by 18 nation’s air forces during the war, and its last recorded combat operation being flown by the Finns in February of 1943 ended with a Soviet R-5 recon plane being shot down.

This resin set by Aires is not my first experience with their products. Like their other products, the resin is smooth, bubble and blemish free. What I really like is that the part includes the attachment tab for locating the stabilizer to the fuselage. As a builder, you really only need to know that the part will drop right in and a resin friendly glue will be necessary to attach the fuselage. Certainly don’t forget to wash the part clean before priming and painting.