I discovered HMH Publications and Duke Hawkins Series recently and they are quickly becoming favorites of mine. The quality of the content that is covered (i.e level of detail) and the printing are fantastic. The paper quality is super, with a satin finish. All pictures are in color, with proper exposure and very sharp focus, so all details are crisp.

The pictorial book is split in the following sections: Types, Forward Fuselage, Fuselage, Air Intakes, Wings, Cockpit, Front Landing Gear, Main Landing Gear, Vertical Tail, Maintenance, Engine, Pylons, Action and then an extra 20 pages on the Mirage 5 and Mirage 50.

As you can see, the pictures have very descriptive and relevant captions, helping you understand what detail is being highlighted in each image. Not only you are getting all the walk-around images you need for your build, you are also learning details of the aircraft as you read along.

The maintenance section is very useful if you are thinking of having any open panels in your model, as the images are very sharp for either color detail painting or even scratch building a piece or two.

A note should be made that the Mirage III/5/50 saw service during many decades with at least a dozen air forces. That means covering every single version and airframe type is very difficult, if not impossible within the constrains of a single book. Between the covers you will find plenty of detail on the Belgium, Swiss, Argentine and Pakistani aircrafts, with some coverage of the Chilean and Venezuelan, while other air forces have a much more limited or no coverage. Just take that into consideration, as a specific detail from one of the airframes in a given air force might not be accurate for a different air force.

Highly recommended.

I would like to thank HMH Publications, Casemate Publications and IPMS/USA for the review sample.