Historical Background

This book is part of a series explaining the historical developments of military and civil aviation in the Arab World. This includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. After the end of World War I, these regions were in the process of moving from European colonial rule to independence, with Britain and France in decline, while Germany and Italy were attempting to increase their influence. At the same time, aviation was slowly improving, and the Middle Eastern areas were developing more sophisticated aviation facilities. The British were probably the most involved in colonial developments, while France and Spain were in decline.

The Airframe and Miniature series by Valiant Publications gives the modeler and the enthusiast the most information and details you will find about a given subject.

When you first open the book, you will see the table of contents, then the preface. The preface goes over a brief history of P-51s from the B model up to the K model. There are also lists of USAAF and RAF squadrons that operated P-51s during and after WWII. The preface concludes with a run-down of which countries used the aircraft, how they were acquired and, their operational life.

Chapter one is the evolution of the P-51 from the XP-51D to the P-51K-20-NT. Each version of the P-51 has about a paragraph of information on the differences between models and a side profile.

Chapter two is about the evolution of the Photoreconnaissance, trainers, and projected production versions. With the same layout of chapter one.

With the success of its A320/321 Airbus has proven a worthy competitor to the Boeing 737. This set replaces the gear parts in the Revell A321 New Engine Option (NEO) kit. Six parts are provided and the casting is directly from the kit parts including runners with kit part numbers on them. No doubt, there are advantages to metal parts supporting a model of this size but there are some issues. Removing the parts from the sprues was difficult to do without distorting the parts. The metal used is very pliable so they can be straightened out. In this scale, I don't know how precise the parts prep would have to be but the sample had some offsets in casting that needed a lot of material removal to make level joints. Once the struts are glued to the main gear, it makes a pretty stout assembly. I did not have the kit to compare too but photos references do match the parts fairly well.