As quoted from Squadron/Signal Publications: "In Action books, despite the title of the genre, are books that trace the development of a single type of aircraft, armored vehicle, or ship from the prototype to the final production variant. Experimental or "one-off" variants can also be included. Our first In Action book was printed in 1971."

In the mid to late thirty's the U.S. Navy was looking for a new high speed, high altitude fighter. Chance Vought brought their design to the competition, the XF4U-1. The Navy was impressed with the design and Vought started on the prototype. During one of the flight tests the XF4U-1 reached a speed of 405 mph and this impressed the Navy enough to order it into production and thus was the beginning for one of the most famous fighter aircraft to come out of WWII.

In this book, there is narrative that covers the different models of Corsair along with a multitude of great photo documentation. The photos consist of many different views and locations along with some great detail shots that will help any modeler to add the correct details to their models. Most of the photographs are in black and white, while there are some excellent color ones also. There is also a wide assortment of line drawings covering everything from the evolution of the Corsair airframe to details such as the different canopies used on the Corsair. Did I mention artwork? There are four pages of some great color artwork starting with the first prototype through the F4U-7.

This looks to be Squadron/Signal’s third release of the F4U Corsair In Action title. The first was In Action Aircraft No. 29 followed by In Action Aircraft No. 145. This new book contains 53 new photographs and 16 additional pages.

I recommend this book to anybody that is a fan or modeler of "bent wing bird." I would like to thank MMD-Squadron and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to do the review on this book.