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Book Author(s)
Tony Holmes, Cover Art by Gareth Hector
Review Author
Perry Downen
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$17.95

In the early months of WWII much of the air war in Western Europe and Southern England was carried on between Spitfires, Hurricanes and Bf 109s. Having gained a degree of success over Poland, Norway and France, German introduced its “heavy fighter,” the Bf 110 Zerstörr, into the fray. The story of how the Hurricane in particular bested the highly touted twin-engine fighter is covered in this book.

This soft bound 7-1/4” X 9-3/4” book consists of 80 pages.

The book contains numerous black and white period photographs. Each photograph is accompanied by a block of text explaining the action or activity seen. Artist Jim Laurier has provided full-color three-view, cockpit drawings and armament views of the two planes. The quality of this artwork is excellent. The cockpit drawings have each instrument, handle, lever, and switch numbered and identified.

The table of contents contains:

Book Author(s)
Jim Sullivan
Review Author
Ed Kinney
Published on
Company
Squadron Products
MSRP
$16.95

This, being the third release (all written by Jim Sullivan) of the “Corsair in Action” series, I was curious and pulled the previous releases for comparison purposes. Not surprisingly, the quality level became better with each book marketed. The first one (1029) consisted of 50 pages, the second one (1145) offered 58 pages and aside from front and rear covers and the center spread, there was no color within. The latest offering contains 64 pages, and is loaded with both color photos and profiles, artwork by Dan Greer. I find the format similar to the “walk around” series also from Squadron Signal.

The text is well written and begins with the early “bent wing birds” during the golden age of aviation, proceeds through the “Birdcage” versions and each later mark and dash number is portrayed. Not only military aircraft (U.S. and other), but the Air Racers are covered along with other survivors.

Review Author
Dan Mackay
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$3.37

The later Ju 88Gs and Ju 188 have always been favorites of mine, causing me to collect anything and everything about these aircraft. Surprising these latest editions from Hasegawa are not always easy to obtain here in North America this could be due to the timing of their releases as it happened during the distribution transition from Dragon USA to Hobbico. Nevertheless, now that Hobbico is established with the Hasegawa lines, these late war Ju 88/Ju 188’s should get easier to obtain. So it was with great excitement that I was able to review these engine intakes from Quickboost.

Book Author(s)
Ray Rimell & Harry Woodman
Review Author
David Goudie
Published on
Company
Albatros Productions, Ltd.
MSRP
$28.95

For those of you interested in World War One aviation you are probably familiar with Windsock Worldwide, a publication of Albatros Publications, Ltd. out of the U.K. If you are a modeler of World War One aviation and not familiar then you might check them out at your soonest. In addition to their bi-monthly Windsock magazine, Windsock publishes “Data Files” dealing, in detail, with specific single subjects. The bi-monthly Windsock magazine deals with more than one WW-I aircraft subject and always includes at least one highly competent and detailed review and build article. As a modelling publication and reference series on WW-I aviation subjects they are second to none, unequivocally.

Review Author
Jim Pearsall
Published on
Company
Minicraft Model Kits
Scale
1/144
MSRP
$27.99

The Aircraft

The Boeing 737 was developed in the 1960s as a low-cost development of the 707 and 727. It’s the only Boeing “narrow body” airliner still in production. There are 9 versions, ranging from 85 to 215 passengers. While not approaching the Bf-109 in numbers, the 737 is the best-selling jet airliner in history, with 6638 delivered, with 2186 more on order as of December 31, 2010 (Editor: Boeing source).

The 737 in this kit is the -400 version, with CFM-56 engines. Because of the low wing and large diameter of the engines, the lower side of the nacelle is flattened, giving a distinctive “hamster pouch” look. The -300 and -500 versions differ from the -400 in fuselage length, with the -400 being 10 feet longer than the -300 and the -500 is 8 feet shorter than the -300.