United States Air Force (USAF) crew chiefs work tirelessly around -the clock to ensure aircraft are available for missions, especially in combat zones. VideoAviation.com has captured this spirit of “Can – do” with their latest offering.

The kit contains 12 parts for two figures and a Vietnam-era flight line fire bottle. The standing figure has doffed his shirt, something that would be quite understandable in the hot tropics combined with constant combat sorties, and aircraft that needed around-the-clock maintenance.

The fit of the parts is excellent, and seams clean up quickly and easily with files. My only problem with fit is with the standing figure, whose arms didn’t quite fit properly into place, and required just a touch of putty. My recommendation would be to dry-fit the figures into place on a diorama before gluing the arms into place.

The F-104 Starfighter was a single engine, single seat fighter that was operational from the mid-1950s through 2004. The TF-104 was a two-seat training version and did not carry the fuselage mounted cannon.

Italeri’s 1/32 scale TF-104 follows their nice F-104 from a few years ago. It comes packaged in a very large, sturdy box. All the parts sprues are individually wrapped and only a couple of parts were disconnected from the sprue. The clear parts and photo-etch fret were contained on one side of the box protected by a cardboard divider. Two very large decal sheets, an instruction manual plus a separate painting and decal manual were located at the bottom of the box.

Like a fireball in the night, the story of the Vietnam War dominates our historical consciousness. This new addition to Osprey’s Combat series, focuses on the French Foreign Legion versus the Viet Minh from 1948 to 1952. The book concentrates on a four year period, marking the height of the French occupation and counter-insurgency against the Viet Minh. Combat is one of the newer series of Osprey Publishing and it follows a formulaic format. Each book is illustrated with original art work, depicting some of the combat scenes described in the book as well as historical photographs contemporary to the conflict. The first part of each book provides context for the combat, focusing on the issues related to the larger war and the composition of the armed forces involved in each battle featured. The heart of the book are short narratives of individual battles that also feature maps that allow you to follow along with the actions described in the text.