With the recent demise of some of our favorite scale modeling publications, the stars have aligned for Andy Evans and David Francis and their mag designers Jonathan Phillips and Andy Folds. As a result, they were able to team up and put together Phoenix Scale Publications to the benefit of those of us in the scale modeling hobby. Their excellent Phoenix Scale Modelling and Phoenix Aviation Modelling magazines became available earlier this year.

Aviation modelers will also benefit from their outstanding reference book series, which includes their Airmark series as well as their Red Series, White Series and Blue Series of aircraft reference books.

The subject of this review is the Real to Replica Blue Series #3 – The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. This soft cover 8.25” X 11.5” booklet contains 96 pages of background and development, color reference photos accompanied by reference commentary for each picture, along with a color profile artwork section.

The book is comprised of a helpful Glossary of terms, an Introduction, 3 chapters detailing background and development, the F-35 in US service, and F-35 International Operators, followed by the color profiles, a collection of walkaround photos, an Appendix of Specifications, and a Gallery Appendix of in-flight photos. The book concludes with a 15 page section of review builds of various F-35 kits. Modelers credits include Danumurthi Mahendara’s build of a 1/48 Kitty Hawk F-35C, Snorre Sandviken’s build of the 1/72 Italeri F-35A, Guiseppe Giorgio’s build of an Italeri F-35B in blue primer, Andy McCabe’s build of the 1/48 Italeri F-35B, and Lee Powell’s build of Italeri’s 1/72 F-35B in RAF markings.

Modelers will find this book to be an invaluable reference to have on hand when building any of the currently available kits of the F-35.

Thanks to Phoenix Scale Publishing and IPMS/USA for the review sample.