“It all started with few maps and an innocent German rafting expedition.” (Chapter 4, page 20). The war for the Siachen glacier sounds like something from a historical fiction book. One pundit called it two bald men fighting over a comb, but Operation Meghdoot was a 36-year-long shooting war fought at the highest elevations ever (up to 22,000 feet or ~6700 meters) between two bitter, next-door neighbors with nukes fighting over the largest ice mass on Earth outside of the polar regions. Where the weather killed many times more men than the enemy, and where China was ever a threat to intervene at the top of the world. Warfare rules were rewritten for constant cold weather and elevation, and helicopters were absolutely essential. This “operation” was mostly ignored by the rest of the world, and still has very large geopolitical aftershocks. Meghdoot is Sanskrit for Cloud Messenger, an apt moniker.

There have been many kits of the F-4 Phantom in 1/72^nd scale over the years. Some were bad, some were good, some were great. Along comes Fine Molds of Japan in 2021 and they knock the ball out of the park with their series of the F-4 in 1/72^nd scale. Many of the pitfalls that have plagued Phantom kits over the years have been corrected and conquered by Fine Molds and a lot of attention has been paid to some of those troublesome areas, like intakes, burner cans, long nose and short nose forward fuselage, etc. It also appears that a lot of attention has been paid to many of the more recent issues of the aircraft in 1/48^th and incorporated the solutions into 1/72^nd.

Medal of Honor Volume 3 Marine Aviators of WW2, Part 1 tells the story of six Marine aviators who earned their countries highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, in World War 2. Every aircraft in which the medal was won is shown in color profiles, together with profiles of some of their Japanese opponents. The story of these Marine aviators is told in detailed text, 245 photos (58 color), 33 aircraft in color profile, 23 color graphics, and 14 black & white graphics in its 164 pages.

Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the Kinetic 1/48 IA-58 Pucara. The set is including a total 13 parts covering the main landing gear struts and nose landing gear. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

Considering the size and weight of the IA-58 Pucara in 1/48 scale, investing on a sturdy landing gear is likely to be a good idea. Considering that the Pucara is a tricycle landing gear with a large tail, you will be adding a fair amount of lead weights that would sit on top of the nose landing gear. In addition, when using white metal landing gear you can always ‘tweak’ the landing gear strut for an improved alignment of the parts which again in a large model airplane is an extra advantage.

You can see from the pictures the parts are very cleanly molded and formed, without any visible molding lines (typical of plastic parts).

This is a large volume with good basic historical and use information about each design covered with multiple color profiles. Some of the profiles are rendered in 3-view. Also, the readers are provided by the author with 4-view scaled drawings with cross sections. Some drawings are in 1/72 and some are in 1/48. Fifteen different aircraft are covered in the book. These being: Gloster Gladiator, Bristol Blenheim, Hawker Hurricane, Merlin powered Spitfires, griffon powered Spitfires, BP Defiant, Bell Airacobra, Westland Whirlwind, Curtiss Tomahawk and Kittyhawk, Bristol Beaufighter, Hawker Typhoon, NA Mustang, De Havilland Mosquito and Hawker Tempest.