Valiant Wings Publishing was founded in 2010 under the guidance of Richard A. Franks and Mark Peacock. Valiant Wings has released several series of primarily airplane monographs [Airframe & Miniature, Airframe Album and Airframe Detail series] with the first Airframe Album dedicated to the Heinkel He 219 ‘Uhu’ released in 2012. This is Valiant Wings largest Airframe Album to date at 192 pages.

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a twin-engine light bomber which entered U.S. Army Air Forces service in 1941. 5,000 airframes were built, and the aircraft was used in all theaters of operations for the U.S. during World War II. The Martin B-26 was a medium altitude [10,000 to 15,000 feet] bomber with the lowest loss rate of any Allied bomber! Many Allied air forces flew the Marauder including; U.S., British, Free French, Australian, South African and Canadian in combat. At the conclusion of World War II, B-26 crews had flown more than 110,000 operational sorties and had dropped about 150,000 tons of bombs on the enemy. The Martin B-26 was declared obsolete by the United States Air Force in 1948, but few had even been airworthy by this late date. The B-26 designation was transferred to the Douglas A-26 in June 1948 after the Martin bomber was withdrawn from USAF service.

Detail & Scale produced some incredible references back in the 1980s/90s, and I recall the research within several of them helping to advance my building skills as a young modeler. Recently, the company revitalized itself and has been issuing new (or fully updated) publications with even more comprehensive coverage of aviation subjects. These are now available in digital format as well as traditional printed volumes. As before, there is a brief but detailed history of the subject aircraft, followed by loads of photos of both museum and contemporary aircraft, and a modelers’ section.

The P-38 Lightning Part 2: P-38J through P-38M Variants (also covers the F-5B, F-5E, F-5F & F-5G Photo Reconnaissance Variants) is the first of this newer round of publications I have had the pleasure to read and review.

This is not my first review of a Detail & Wonder after-market landing gear set. And, as previously noted, this landing gear ‘Upgrade Set’ continues to set a very high bar in terms of both accuracy, price, and overall quality.Thanks for taking a few minutes to read these notes.

I’ll be honest, I never expected a Great War balloon kit and boy was I surprised to see this kit up for review. The kit consists of a small sprue of polystyrene parts, a left and right balloon halve (polystyrene), a sheet of photoetch balloon basket lines and a decal sheet. Oh, the best part for those of you how enjoy making dioramas, the kit includes a set of 40 each 3D printed figures in various poses. Wow! You will probably need to take advantage included polystyrene model stand.

Construction is very straight-forward beginning with the two balloon halves. I found the molding very well done and the fit was very good as well. The plastic of the two balloon halves is quite thick, but I think that helps in the grand scheme of things. Even with the great fit, it will be necessary to a little work seam joint. A little extra attention will be necessary at both ends of the balloon where there appears to be extra panels to strengthen the fabric panel seams.