Short History

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a ground attack aircraft designed for the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The delta winged, single-engine A-4 was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company’s chief designer Ed Heinemann. The aircraft was later produced by McDonnell Douglas. The A-4 was originally designated the A4D under the Navy’s pre-1962 designation system. The A-4 was in response to a call by the US Navy for a jet-powered attack aircraft to replace the older Douglas Skyraider. Ed Heinemann opted for a design that would minimize size, weight and systems complexity. The little Skyhawk quickly began to be called by other nicknames such as “Scooter”, “Kiddiecar”, “Bantam Bomber”, “Tinker Toy Bomber”, and one of its more famous of nicknames, “Heinemann’s Hot Rod”.

Osprey Publishing, in cooperation with The Tank Museum, has published a guide of “the 40 most iconic tanks of the 20^thcentury.” Each of the tanks covered in the guide receives three pages that include a one page history, an extensive list of specifications, two full color drawings and detailed descriptions of each drawing.

Much of the histories will already be known to students of armor, but I did find bits about the covered vehicles that are new to me. The full color drawings are exceptional and show the tanks in a used condition with many covered in crew gear and other equipment. The majority are side profiles, however there are many views from the front or rear quarter. The lists of specifications are fairly extensive for the size of the book and are useful for comparing the different vehicles. Finally, the picture narratives provide additional details on the particular tanks in the drawings.

The Detail Parts

Lion Roar has a reputation for offering excellent P.E. parts for ships and this new product continues that tradition of high quality. This product is labeled as, “WWII USN Ship Vessels Guard Rails” and is not specific to any one kit, but rather, is generic and applicable to most, if not almost any WWII USN subject.

The package contains two frets, both loaded with railings and stanchions. Both frets are identical in content.

The Story

This book represents a novel approach to aviation history, and instead of the usual treatment of aircraft types, famous pilots, or even significant designers, the author identifies what he considers to be the significant aircraft producers of the World War I era, and goes through the development of the companies and the actions of their founders and CEO’s, explaining how their aircraft were developed and used. After producing a list of 92 significant producers, the authors selected 27 to discuss in detail, and he does an excellent job of presenting the startup of the firms, the personnel involved, and the airplanes, both successful and unsuccessful. He alludes to the postwar period a number of times, as many of these aircraft, such as the DH-4, Curtiss JN-4, and other types were used long after the end of hostilities, in both military and civilian roles.

Every once in a while something nice happens to you. This little photo-etch set is just the sort of thing I’m referring to. I’ve had the major parts of a Hasegawa Ki 48 Lily kit clipped off the sprues for some time in the hope that eventually I would locate enough reference material to guide me in adding cockpit detail when I continue with the build. The opportunity to review this new Platz photo-etch detail set for the Ki 48 was just what I needed to move me from a state of static inertia to critical mass. The kit box was located among the ‘in-progress’ stack, reopened, contents examined, the workbench was cleared and my Optivisor was back in place.