Monday, April 15th, 1912 – While on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, New York, the White Star ocean liner RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean as a result of striking an iceberg. The tragedy resulted in the loss of 1,517 lives and forever impacted the Ocean liner industry. Billed as the largest passenger ship in the world [at the time], the Olympic-class Titanic was referred to as “unsinkable” due to its compartmented sections and watertight doors. Design flaws, however, rendered these features useless. During the night of April 14th, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg along her starboard side, causing the rivets which held her steel hull plates to break. This opened the hull along multiple compartments, something the designers had not foreseen.

Windsock Worldwide is considered to be the “gold standard” by many historians and modelers when the subject matter is World War I aviation, and this issue will not disappoint. This issue is designated by Albatros Productions as a “Special Collector’s Edition.” That designation is well deserved. This issue was expanded to 40 pages. The flyer inserted into this issue best summarizes the contents and reads, “Apart from the World exclusive reviews of the early and late version RAF Fe-2bs and Rumpler C.IVS, there is an extended, highly-detailed, 14 page build log of the early Fe-2b by editor Ray Rimell. This heavily-illustrated stage-by-stage guide also includes contemporary diagrams from the original Parts Schedule to aid modellers seeking extra documentation.

Bob Sanchez continues to turn out great decals. This sheet is for F-15C Eagles from Bitburg Air Base in Germany. The markings are on one full and one half sheet printed flawlessly by Microscale. They include markings for jets ranging from 1983 through 1993 and show three different stencil styles and two paint schemes. Markings include squadron and wing commander’s aircraft, as well as an aircraft marked for the US/Germany Tricentennial in September of 1983. Six of the tail numbers shown carry kill marks from Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

The instructions include six full-color pages of drawings and pictures of the different aircraft that can be made from these sheets. Markings for 13 aircraft are on the sheets, with sufficient stencils to do one full-color, two subdued, and one Mod-Eagle jet. In my opinion, this sheet is well worth the asking price, especially considering it does function as its own reference guide.