Valiant Wings has released the 11^th installment on its series “Airframe Extra” and it is fully devoted to the Falkland’s conflict of 1982. The book starts with a historical section covering the events leading to the Argentinean invasion in April 1982 and later military events.

I should point out that the book almost exclusively includes historical pictures of British equipment and the historical claims for the islands are narrated from the British perspective only. It would have been nice to see more period pictures of Argentinean equipment and to have included the history of Argentinean claims to the islands as well, as to enrich the historical research.

The book has two sections of great color profiles -covering both British and Argentinean equipment. I want to point out that one of the profiles shows an Argentinean C-130 with a MER and bombs, but the caption fails to describe that the FAA C-130 did see combat as bombers, targeting supply ship far into the Atlantic Ocean on their way south. Great work of Richard Caruana on the profile (and on his research to capture the bomber role of the C-130) but sadly the caption left out one of the most interesting and unusual details of the artwork. The only other mistake I spotted is the CH-47 Chinook of the Argentinean Army showing the word “Ejertico” on its side, instead of “Ejercito” (ie the “c” and “t” are swapped).

There are two color profiles for the Argentinean Skyhawks that, historically have been questioned as accurate in the timeline of the conflict. One of them shows an FAA A-4C with green/off-white camouflage and the other one shows an Argentinean Navy A-4Q with a green/light brown camouflage. Those camouflages are accurate, as there is plenty of evidence the airplanes had worn those schemes shortly after the conflict ended. But is not completely clear if the airplanes had those camouflage schemes during the timeline of the conflict. Despite the potential ‘timing’ issue -which to the best of my knowledge is not proven one way or another- the profiles have been fantastically depicted by Richard Caruana.

There are 6 other chapters of the book which are focused on construction articles for the following models

• 1/72 A-4B/P Skyhawk (converted to A-4C)
• Italeri 1/72 Wessex
• Modelsvit 1/72 Mirage IIIEA
• Tamiya 1/48 Sea Harrier FRS.1
• Kinetic 1/48 Pucara
• Kinetic IAI Dagger

The construction projects include great in-progress pictures and narrative, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each model and how to avoid trouble areas or how to improve the looks of the finished model. I should point out that tthe Modelsvit 1/72 Mirage only shows finished model pictures and there is no narrative. All six finished models are outstanding and inspiring.

In summary, this book presents a great collection of period pictures (mostly of British equipment), some pictures of Argentinean equipment (mostly post-conflict and clearly stated as such), a fantastic selection of color profiles for both Argentinean and British aircraft plus 6 construction projects.

Highly recommended to the modeler and the history aficionado.

I would like to thank Valiant Wings and IPMS/USA for the review sample.