The latest journal of Cross & Cockade International - Spring 2017, features a photograph of a single bay Sopwith 2FR2 Bulldog. The rear cover features three color profiles of aircraft in the Castellorizo, and the Loss of HMS Ben-my-Chree article. If you check out the web site link above, you can get additional sample pics of the current issue.

Cross & Cockade International is a non-profit UK based group known as the First World War Aviation Historical Society that publishes their journal four times a year. They also provide a free newsletter (sign up on their website) and occasionally publish WWI themed books like the Sopwith Dolphin monograph I reviewed earlier for IPMS USA. This Journal is the sister of the US Journal, Over The Front.

Description

The Supermarine Spitfire is not only one of the most famous British icons, but it is arguably the most widely-recognized and popular aircraft in the history of aviation. For many generations, it was said to be ‘every schoolboy’s dream’ to fly a Spitfire, and Flying the Icon: Spitfire aims to give the reader an insight into what that requires.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the first flight of Prototype K5054 on 5 March 1936, author Jarrod Cotter presents something entirely different from the previously published histories of the Spitfire. Having spent a great deal of time talking to Spitfire pilots past and present, attending flight operations briefings and Spitfire pilot training courses, he has used his ‘insider’s’ perspective to produce a book solely on flying this most iconic of all fighters.

Eduard has an outstanding line of F6F Hellcat models in both Profipack and Weekend boxings and it has released photoetch frets for the Weekend line as a stand-alone item. The Weekend models have only plastic parts (as opposed to the Profipack boxes), but at times you might want to enhance the look of them by adding some photoetch, hence the Weekend Photoetch frets. Often they only cover the cockpit, the part number tends to be low, and the parts require limited bending, hence being a simplified version of the full photoetch fret of the Profipack package.

In particular, this fret is devoted to the night-fighter version of the Hellcat used during the last few years of WWII. Note that the instrument panel (IP) includes a visor/screen for the radar. In addition to an IP, you also get cockpit side detail and seatbelts, making for a very nice and busy cockpit.