Historical Background

The Henschel HS-126 was a parasol wing single engine army cooperation aircraft developed for the Luftwaffe early in 1937. At the beginning, problems were experienced with the engines, and some changes had to be made, but the first production model, HS-126A-1 came into service in 1938. Soon, an upgraded model, the HS-126B-1 came into use, and that became the standard production model. A tropicalized version, HS-126B-1 Trop. , appeared in 1940, and an export model, Hs 126K-6 was sold to Greece early in the war.

The type suffered badly during the Battle of France in 1940 resulted in the end of mass production, and the type was replaced by the twin engine Focke Wulf FW-189. The type continued in use for several years thereafter.

Book Description and Features

The book mainly consists of a series of black and white photos taken during the war, illustrating the various camouflage schemes and markings variations that appeared on this aircraft during its service career. There is a brief description of the different production models at the beginning of the book, but no color photos or drawings. But the photos are very complete in showing what the type looked like in service, and many photos show the plane in damaged or abandoned condition, many times after capture.

Recommendation

This book will be quite useful for modelers wishing to build models of this aircraft. It provides many situations for dioramas, and is quite interesting to just go through it and look at the pictures. It is inexpensive, and definitely worth getting. Don’t miss out on this one.

Thanks To

Thanks to MMP Publishers, Casemate Publishers, Bill O’Malley, and Phil Peterson for the review copy.