The United States military in Vietnam quickly realized the need for attack helicopters to support both ground forces and cargo helicopters. The AH-1G was the first specifically designed attack helicopter (it was originally designated the UH-1H, but the “A” was added for the attack designation, but when the ubiquitous “Huey” Iroquois UH-1D became the UH-1H, the Huey Cobra became the AH-1G) and made its combat debut in August 1967 with the US Army.

The US Marine Corps also saw a need for attack helicopters and 38 AH-1Gs were transferred from the Army in 1969 as an interim measure until the USMC’s requirement for twin-engine Cobras (AH-1J) were available. This kit has markings for three of these AH-1G Cobras (the fourth is for a US Navy Test Pilot School aircraft).

Historical Background

The hobby of modeling has been around for almost as long as mankind, perfected in the later centuries by sailors aboard ships, who occupied free time by building ship models. In the twentieth century, with the development of airplanes and motorized vehicles, modeling expanded, with the appearance of kits made of wood, plastic, metals, and other materials. With this amount of activity, modeling became a popular activity, and publications and organizations began to appear throughout the world. The development of plastic kits probably began in England before World War II, and the use of models for military recognition training gave more people experience with the activity. American high school students build model airplanes for the military from plans provided by the military, and other models were produced of ships and vehicles for those services. Boys of that generation all built models of one kind or another.

With the recent demise of some of our favorite scale modeling publications, the stars have aligned for Andy Evans and David Francis and their mag designers Jonathan Phillips and Andy Folds. As a result, they were able to team up and put together Phoenix Scale Publications to the benefit of those of us in the scale modeling hobby. Their excellent Phoenix Scale Modelling and Phoenix Aviation Modelling magazines became available earlier this year.

Aviation modelers will also benefit from their outstanding reference book series, which includes their Airmark series as well as their Red Series, White Series and Blue Series of aircraft reference books.

The subject of this review is the Real to Replica Blue Series #3 – The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. This soft cover 8.25” X 11.5” booklet contains 96 pages of background and development, color reference photos accompanied by reference commentary for each picture, along with a color profile artwork section.

Squadron’s in Action series is back!

This volume covers the F/A-18 Hornet, Super Hornet and the E/A-18G Growler and it was one of the pending titles that had been announced before the Squadron Shop went into bankruptcy and its assets were auctioned off a couple of years ago.

The book follows the familiar “In Action” format starting with a brief history of the development of the F/A-18 for the United States Navy and Marine Corps starting with Northup’s YF-17. There are brief discussions of the various versions of the aircraft starting with the F/A-18 A & B models, followed by the F/A-18 C & D models, then the F/A-18 E & F Super Hornets and finally the E/A-18G Growler. Following each section of text are numerous color photographs illustrating airframe details and some of the markings worn by each of the variants as well as the upgrades that were made to the different versions over the years to keep up with advances in electronics and weapons.

A funny thing happened on the way to preparing this review. I could not find this item on the Quickboost web site, the Aires web site on on any of the on-line retailers that I normally buy from. However I did find it listed with Super-Hobby for $7.43. For those modelers wishing to purchase this set you may need to search to find a supplier.

Background (from Wikipedia)

An infrared search and track (IRST) system (sometimes known as infrared sighting and tracking) is a method for detecting and tracking objects which give off infrared radiation, such as the infrared signatures of jet aircraft and helicopters. IRST is a generalized case of forward looking infrared (FLIR), i.e. from forward-looking to all-round situation awareness. Such systems are passive (thermographic camera), meaning they do not give out any radiation of their own, unlike radar. This gives them the advantage that they are difficult to detect.