According to the publisher’s website, the aim of the FlightCraft series “is to provide model makers and aircraft enthusiasts with a new standard of primarily visual reference to both full-size aircraft and their models, using detailed line drawings, plans, profiles and photographs, many in full colour. The series will provide colour references for paint schemes, summaries of design histories and careers, and critical reviews of available kits. ..The series will provide varied coverage across a range of different criteria, showcasing the best of the world's aircraft types and providing invaluable insight and guidance to model makers.”

I have quite a few of this series, now up to 32 in number, and, on the whole, they do what that statement of intent says. Some, however, are better than others.

The C-130 needs no introduction, so I won’t. Needless to say, an aircraft that has been in service for close to 70 years, and operated by as many countries, has a long and varied history, and the author faced a huge – one might say ‘Herculean’- task of distilling that into a meager 96 pages - an unenviable undertaking, for sure. The result is very uneven. While well written, the text is low on specifics and doesn’t capture the long a varied career of the type. There is some repetition of the versions and variants, with three of the chapters covering this at times seemingly haphazardly. The photo selection is large and there are some fine photos, though too many have uninformative captions. There is a selection of 24 colour profiles in the middle of the book, and while there are informative captions, there are no details of the colour schemes, which is unfortunate for the modeller. Many of the profiles depict aircraft from the many worldwide operators - this is sometimes the only place these are mentioned, which is unfortunate for a reference book. Wikipedia lists 73 current and former military operators of the C-130 and most are not mentioned at all in this book.

The modelling section, while large, is a disappointment. A rambling discussion of the C-130 in kit form leads into three builds of the type in 1/72; the build of Italeri’s 1/72 C-130J kit, while well-built, does nothing to address the many accuracy issues of the kit. The two build reports of the Zvezda kit are perfunctory, and none of the reports are helped by their photos being caption-less – something which appears to be increasing in the modelling media and which I find intensely irritating. There are no plans or drawings, nor are there lists of kits past and present, aftermarket or decals.

To sum up, while the extensive photo content is good, the text is not well organized and - though well penned - cursory. The model builds are not “critical reviews”, nor do they “provide colour reference for paint schemes” and for a series claiming to provide “invaluable insight and guidance to model makers,” I’m afraid it just doesn’t succeed. As the author states in his text, “To list every user and the C-130’s wide field of operations…would be worthy of its own book”, and I think therein lies the rub – this book is simply too short to do the type justice. The author would have been better served by being allowed to create a longer book or by producing two volumes – the obvious split being early marks and the later J-model.

My thanks to Casemate for providing the review sample.