The name AK Interactive is probably familiar to many of us as a provider of some very useful weathering products. Although their weathering products work with any model, AK has primarily marketed its products to armor modelers. Recently, however, they have started producing some aircraft-specific products, such as the AK Air Series which currently has “Air Paint” sets (just Luftwaffe and RAF, but I believe more are in the pipeline) and “Air Weathering” sets (designed specifically to weather aircraft engines and landing gear). It looks to me like the “Aces High” magazine has been started to specifically showcase the usage of AK products on aircraft. A note on the cover states “Special Issue: 64 + 20 pages free”, so I suppose future issues will have 64 pages, as compared to this volume which has 84.

This fascinating book tells how the Allies and Axis powers developed aerial reconnaissance systems to gather accurate aerial intelligence, primarily during World War II. The book combines history with photography and provides a unique and different perspective of World War II – from above! The photographs are excellent, with descriptive captions for each photo. The text provides good descriptions of the aircraft used for reconnaissance, and the maps & diagrams illustrate many of the actions.

The book is divided into five sections:

• Beginnings
• Blitzkrieg
• End of the Beginning
• Turning the Tide
• The End of the War

The book also includes a Bibliography/Further Reading, Index of Topics, and Photo Credits, all of which are handy for further research.

The latest 1/48 scale decal set available from Iliad Design provides markings for seven different Korean War-era MiG-15s. The instruction sheet clearly shows six aircraft, but modelers do have the option of doing a seventh (I’ll explain below). Markings are included for four (or five) natural metal and two camouflaged aircraft flown by North Korean, Chinese and Russian pilots. Note that unlike some aftermarket decal companies that provide a variety of unique markings for different aircraft but only one set of national markings, Iliad includes enough national insignias to do all of the aircraft on this sheet. This makes Iliad Design’s modest retail price a real bargain.

The options are: