I would like to thank Specialty Press for submitting this book for review and thank IPMS/USA for allowing me to do the review.

In the 1950s and 1960s I grew up less than a mile from the end of Dobbin Air Reserve Base runway 11. Dobbins has always shared its runway, control tower, weather and rescue services with Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Company. My younger days were filled with watching planes come and go. I was there in a manner of speaking when the C-130 first came to life. Years later I was employed by Lockheed and worked in the engineering department of several aircraft including the C-130. I was very pleased to receive this book for review.

This is the 98^thtitle in Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces Series. The softcover book has 98 pages, including nine pages of color side profiles, a bibliography, index and appendices. The appendices include detailed information on each of the 36 color profiles. There is also a comprehensive listing of the aces that flew Spitfires in the theater that includes the units they flew with, their theater claims and their total claims. The front cover has a dramatic painting of Spitfires attacking Me-323 transports over the Mediterranean Sea. The encounter is described in detail on the page facing the table of contents and makes for some very interesting reading.

This little gem of a set contains four resin stubs. I know you’re thinking what is so special about them. The stubs are not straight pipes. They have a bulge middle and tapered end. The jewel in the crown is the flame dampeners inside the realistically thin end pieces. Designed for the Dragon Ta-154 kit I’m sure these could be fitted to the Promodeler one as well. Simply remove the pour block leaving the attachment stub and paint then add to the model.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Quickboost, Aires Hobby Models and IPMS/USA for the review copy.

The Spitfire certainly needs no introduction; it’s quite simply one of the most versatile and beautiful propeller driven fighters of all time. Because of that fact there has been no shortage of kit manufactures willing to produce any number of variations of this venerable design. Enter Airfix a name long associated with British aircraft models. This time we get a new release of the Spitfire Mk XII in 1/48 scale. In brief, the Mk XII was powered by the Rolls Royce Griffin engine and as a result sports some cowling bumps and a big prop spinner not seen on other variants. Couple the Griffith engine with clipped wings and you get a Spit designed to fly fast at low altitudes to counter low flying Luftwaffe fight bombers and later, V-1 buzz bombs, but enough of the history, lets have a look.

The Kit

I was just getting to the paint job on my review of the Zvezda Mi-24V. I had already painted the sand color when the postman delivered a package which saved me hours of work and possibly saved my sanity also. The Eduard mask set is a really great time and labor saving addition to the project.

If you look at the mask layout, it becomes evident that there are only a couple of straight lines anywhere on the mask. The Hind’s canopies have a number of compound curves and squiggles, and masking these, even with Tamiya tape cut into ½ mm slices would be a difficult job.

The masks went on very nicely. I used tape instead of the liquid mask Eduard suggests, but the masks followed every curve in the canopy lines nicely. A quick shot with the airbrush, and the canopy was painted.

The wheel masks were also quite good, although I had to make a small cut in the main wheel outer mask as the Hind’s wheel is not perfectly flat.