Kagero has released books of various aircraft in the past. This is their 12th edition of the Mongraph Specials and focuses on the FW-190 short nosed variants. The beautifully hard bound book has over 250 pages of high quality paper. It has all the hallmarks of Kagero’s other books.

There are plenty of clear, large pictures throughout the book. There are also some exquisite color profiles that are an inspiration to any would be modeler or historian. On top of that there are some first rate line drawings in the book as well as separate 1/48 and 1/32nd scale fold out drawings for the FW-190A5 and A-8 that are absolutely gorgeous. There are 1/72nd scale drawings included in the book. Now that all sounds great, so lets see if the contents match the highlights.

This set provides a set of resin replacement main wheels for Special Hobby’s recent Me 209 kit. As expected from CMK, the wheels are very nicely cast with good detail including the bolts on the wheel hubs. The tread pattern on the tires is also very sharp and distinct.

The tires are easily separated from the pour stubs and the pour stub and any flash are easily removed and cleaned up as show in the attached photos.

I painted the wheels Tamiya NATO Black and the hubs Tamiya Black as I do other Luftwaffe aircraft wheels, but I will need to do some drybrushing to bring out the hub details as they sort of disappear under the black paint.

This is a nice set and presumably the wheels are drop on replacements for the kit wheels (I still need to pick up a Me 209 kit to use them on!).

Recommended.

In this second installment of John Claringbould’s accounts of aerial combat between Japanese and Allied air forces, here he presents Japanese Naval Air Force operations in the Solomons and New Guinea from 1942 to 1944 (Vol. 1 covers Imperial Japanese Army Air Force engagements in New Guinea during the same period). The author takes a unique approach in presenting these accounts, providing insight for individual encounters through the eyes of each protagonist based on thorough research of each side’s official records, eyewitness testimony, personal narratives and diaries, and on some occasions evidence obtained from wreckage discovered years after the events depicted.

Aviation Collectables Company is an Italian publishers specializing in Italian aviation titles. Titles include Il Thunderjet in Italia, G/80/G/82, Tornado IDS/ECR, SB2C-5 Helldiver, C-130J Super Hercules, T-33A/RT-33A Shooting Star, G.222, F-86K Sabre Jet, and AMX Ghibli. This volume, Cent'anni di Aviazione Navale, was produced for the Centenary Celebration of the Italian Navy in cooperation with the Command of the Air Forces of the Navy.

Unlike Aviation Collectables other monograph titles, this volume celebrates the 100^th Anniversary of Italian Naval Aviation. This is a square back soft cover that includes 128 gloss paper pages. The text is in two columns, one in Italian and one in English. All picture captions are also bi-lingual. I counted 165 color pictures and 23 black and white photographs. You will also find 169 color patches and insignia. There are also ten aviation color side profiles by Mauro Cini.

History

The author of this book, James P. Gallagher, was Communications Officer with the 49^th Fighter Group, U.S. Army Air Forces, which operated in the Philippines towards the end of the war, and later relocated to mainland Japan with the occupation forces. Gallagher had been a prize winning photographer when he was in college, and managed to carry a camera with him throughout his military career. One problem was that he was aboard an Australian bomber flying in the Philippines when the plane went down, and he lost his camera. Fortunately, he was able to write home, and his brother located another camera and sent it to him, so he could continue his work. All of his work was done with a 120 camera.