The Douglas built A-20 havoc first flew on October 26, 1938.  Designed by Jack Northrop and Ed. Heinemann, Douglas produced over 7000 of them, making it the most produced light bomber.

Originally ordered by the French, the American Army Air Corps quickly caught on and placed an order three months later.  Nearly half of the production run went to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act.  Many feel it was one of the most versatile combat aircraft of the war, being in service from before the war, all the way through to the end, serving in nearly every theater and utilized by most Allied nations.  Its roles included bombing, ground attack, strafing, torpedo attack, photo recon, night intruder, and interceptor.

Phoenix Scale Publications is a partnership of four people that have many years in the modeling world. They produce magazines (Scale Modeling and Aviation Modeling), Books (Red, Blue, White and Airmark series). The books are dedicated to specific planes and for this review, we look at the Airmark in Profile and in Scale series No.4, the North American A-5/RA-5 Vigilante.

The contents of the book show the layout:

Cliff Lord served in Britain’s Royal Signals during the 1960s as a cipher operator in England, Germany and on active service in Aden and the East Aden Protectorate. After the Army, Cliff worked in Paris for the Washington Post and later moved to New Zealand working as a computer operator, a communications network controller for Air New Zealand, and Team Leader International Operations for the Southern Cross fiber optics trans-pacific cable before retiring. He is Honorary Historian for Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals. Cliff has written nine books on military history and insignia.