This issue represents a milestone for SAM. This is the inaugural issue for Volume 35. Thirty five years of providing a high quality publication to the modeling community is a momentous event and SAM deserves a “Well Done” for that remarkable achievement.

Even if this issue were not the launch for Vol 35, it would have caught my attention immediately. There, on the cover, is one of my favorite modeling subjects. In any scale, the Ju-87 has always been an enjoyable project for me, and in 1/32nd, by Trumpeter, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that. In 9 pages of richly detailed text, Editor Jay Laverty shares the tools and techniques he used to produce an excellent model of the Ju-87B-2.

Also featured in this issue is an article by Alex Kontevies. Alex presents his 1/48th scale Whitley, a vacform kit by Sanger, and it is very impressive! 10 pages of text and images, augmented by a fold-out section show, to great effect, that Mr. Kontevies can build a vacform kit that easily surpasses what most builder could manage with an injection kit. I doubt I’ll be accepting the challenge presented by this kit, but I don’t mind admitting that I learned some new and interesting techniques by reading this article.

Also contained in this issue are:

• Rumbly in the Jungly – an article by Mike Williams featuring a Compact Build-Review of the Dragon Sea King HC.4 in 172nd scale.
• Martin-Baker’s-Monster – an article by Neil Pinchbeck featuring a Compact Build-Review of the Magna Models 1/48th scale Martin-Baker MB.2.
• War Weary 110 – a Compact Build-Review of the Eduard 1/72nd scale Bf-110E by Jamie Haggo. Some useful techniques are demonstrated in this article, such as the use of a riveting scriber. It can also be said that I’ve never met an Eduard product that I didn’t like.
• Soviet Strafer – a Compact Build-Review of the Tamiya IL-2 in 1/48th scale by James Ashton. If you have any plans to build this excellent Tamiya kit, your first step should be to study this article.
• Heavyweight Fighter – a Compact Build-Review by Marco Preto featuring the Hasegawa Fw-190A-6 in 1/48th scale. Again, this article, like the IL-2 article above, is the first step one should take in any build project of this excellent model. An interesting technique mentioned in this article is the use of a lubricant on the airbrush needle which will assist the builder in obtaining that unique and often difficult German splotchy camouflage pattern on the fuselage of the Fw-190.
• Supersonic Civil Soviet – a Compact Build review of the ICM 1/144th scale Tu-144 by Maxim Finchenko. This article was interesting to me since I had recently completed the ACE Concorde kit, and because I have a fascination with the SST variants.
• Last, but by no means least, Massimo Santarossa contributed the 72nd Scale Feature Build review of the MPM A-20 Boston. Massimo did a superior job building this kit, especially the weathered appearance of the final model. The accompanying images and text provide a starting point for a modeler wishing to use oil paints to wash and weather the panel lines on the airframe. The result is stunning.

As always, the quality of the images throughout the magazine is of a superior nature and the quality of the text is high. The articles contain a great deal of useful information as well as provide a high level of pure entertainment.

At this level of quality, another 35 years is a sure bet!

Thanks to Scale Aircraft Modelling for 35 years of effort and work, and thanks for the opportunity to review this issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling.