Upon opening the box, one is greeted with a simple resin kit of an aircraft so obscure that even though I pride myself on my knowledge of WWII aircraft and have built over 100 resin kits of many obscure aircraft, I even had to look this one up!

The Irbitis I-16 was an indigenous fighter design from Latvia. The aircraft was small, approximately 24 feet in length with a wingspan of 26 feet 11 inches and a height of 8 feet 2 ¼ inches. Maximum speed was estimated at 298mph. It was to be armed with two Browning machine guns in the fuselage and two in the wings. The aircraft was test flown in Latvia during the spring of 1940. Shortly thereafter, in the summer of 1940 the Soviets occupied Latvia and further development was stopped until early 1941. Then, in the summer of 1941, the Nazis invaded and took over Latvia. Under the Germans, development continued and when the aircraft was completed it was claimed by the Luftwaffe and from there it disappears into the mists of time.

Squadron Signal Walk Around publications have a long history of high quality and accuracy in detail. This new addition to that line of books is no exception. This particular product focuses on the land-based Spitfires equipped with the Rolls Royce Merlin engine, including the Mark I, Vb, and IXc variants. Displayed in extensive detail are the external and internal workings of the aircraft that played a key role in Britain's defense.

This publication is a scale modeler’s delight. Included in the 80 pages within the book are scale drawings, b&w images from WWII, and many color images of museum aircraft. It is the latter than intrigued me as a modeler. As an example, please refer to the image labeled Sample picture 1 and check out the caption. I often articulate the rudder on the Spitfires that I build and I now know that the deflection angle should not exceed a specified number of degrees. That’s good to know!

One of the latest releases from the photo etch masters at Eduard is a BIG ED set meant for use with the Kinetic release of the Grumman A-6E TRAM Intruder. The set consists of seven different Eduard offerings that include the following: