Thanks once again to Quickboost for providing IPMS USA review items; they have become quite prolific in output!

As usual, Quickboost provides a fast one-for-one replacement for the kit item, in this case the dorsal intake on the SU-24. A very visible item, the kit intake is a two-part box, and is “OK” out of the box; it uses the fuselage as its lower floor... Quick boost steps up and improves, providing an intake that has a more refined, rounded intake, and an exhaust section with the lower “floor” incorporated, which when carefully removed from the pour stub fits right in place of the kit items; it even has the locating tabs to make it easy.

Stratus Publishing continues its line of “Polish Wings”, this time with a book devoted to the Spitfire Mk IX and its pilots during the period 1942-1943.

Among the first polish pilots to fly the Spitfire Mk IX were members of the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) which will deliver airplanes from the assembly line to operational squadrons. Among them were at least two female polish pilots, which got to fly the Spitfire Mk IX before the operational polish pilots in the RAF. Apparently that didn’t go over well at the time, but I’m glad that the record is kept straight and recognition is given to whom it deserved (in this case, two female pilots).

I was very impressed by this publication from cover to cover starting with the cover artwork by Don Greer. Though it is published in a Walk Around Series bound book, it follows the In Action format of the airplane’s inception through each production version. The Introduction explains how the Curtiss P-36 Hawk pursuit aircraft became the P-38’s predecessor. Briefly, the Army Air Corps contracted in early 1937 with Curtiss to convert one P-36 to the new turbo-supercharged, liquid-cooled Allison engine. The redesigned P-36 became the XP-37. The Army Air Corps also issued a contract with Lockheed to design a turbo-supercharged twin engine aircraft in June 1937 and thus the P-38 Lightning was on its way to becoming one of the most popular pursuit aircraft of all World War II.