Tony Buttler was born in England in 1956 and completed his education at Prince Henry's Grammar School in Eyesham. He joined High Duty Alloys in Redditch in 1974 as a metallurgist and for nearly 20 years he was closely involved in the testing of aluminum and titanium airframe and engine components for many of the world's most important airplanes. It was during this timeframe that his interest in military aircraft grew into a passion. Tony left High Duty Alloys in 1993 Buttler and enrolled at Loughborough University, earning his Masters Degree in Archives and Library Studies. He subsequently became a freelance aviation historian specializing in the design and development of military aircraft. Since 1995, Tony has been a freelance aviation historian, with this book being his twenty-seventh major release. He has also written many titles for the Warpaint series of monographs as well as many articles for most of the popular historical aviation magazines.

IPMS/USA again thanks Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with one more of many monthly releases, with extremely useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for the modeling crowd out here in the modeling world. And thanks to IPMS leadership for sending it to me to be reviewed.

Consisting of 14 separate well-cast white metal parts, this gear is the usual replacement for the kit gear. It’s been my experience that GWH tends to use a more robust plastic than many other manufacturers, but SAC metal gear is still worthwhile to install.

Born from the great North American F-86A, the F-86D/K all weather interceptor had a long and widespread career. It served the USA both home and abroad and as this book covers with 7 NATO air forces as well as US forces in Europe. The F-86D/K served NATO until the final ones were retired from the Italian Air Force in 1973.

The book has 5 total sections with the first section a brief overview of its development and production. Section Two covers the USAF in Europe. Section 3 is the largest section comprising 50 pages with coverage of the type’s service in Royal Danish, French, West German, Royal Hellenic, Italian, Royal Netherland and Royal Norwegian Air Force. Section Four has a look inside with manual pages and detail pictures reproduced throughout. The book ends with the squadron badge of every unit in Europe both US and European to operate the F-86D/K.

The Messerschmitt Bf-110 is another iconic mainstay of Luftwaffe aviation that is most recognizable to almost any aviation enthusiast. Originally designed in the 1930’s, the 110 was one of the Luftwaffe’s heavy-fighter/bomber mainstays. Originally it was anticipated to be replaced in the early 1940’s by the Me-210, but due to the 210’s poor performance issues the 110 was given a second chance.

Due to the cancelation of the Me-210, the Luftwaffe had decided it needed to continue to utilize the 110 airframe. In order to do so the 110 needed to overcome its shortfalls in order to keep up with the ever changing and rapid developments in aviation during World War Two. Through the procurement of more powerful engines for the 110 airframe it was able to prolong the use of the aircraft well to the end of the war.

Messerschmitt developed the Bf-109T, based on the Bf-109E series, for operations from the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin”, when it was being developed and built in the late thirties. Although the ship was launched in 1938, the carrier, which was to have had a capacity of 40 aircraft, was never completed. A second carrier, the Peter Strasser, was started but never launched. It was scrapped in 1940. The Graf Zeppelin was retained, and work resumed briefly in 1942, but eventually, it was stopped in 1943. Specialized folding wing JU-87B’s and Bf-109T’s were developed for these ships.