I’m a sucker for oddities and non-standard schemes when it comes to finishing my model aircraft. I saw the Iliad designs offering for Stearman PT-17 airframes and thought this is the set for me. I was pleasantly surprised to see Iliad design proved a full set of five decal options. So you have five kits in your stash? You’re covered in this one set. Along with a very nice color representation of the each aircraft scheme Iliad Design goes the extra mile to describe any non-standard colors or more specifically non-stand color shades. Each scheme as one would expect come with a short description of each aircraft.

March of 2016 marks the 80^th birthday of the Spitfire design. Like its American counterpart the P-51, the Spitfire is the most numerous survivor of its country’s WWII fighters both on display and flying! As the years go by we lose more and more of those who were there and flew these machines in the last great global conflict. Soon they all will have passed into history. Their machines though will live on to tell the story.

Each of the Spitfires discussed in this book has a service history. Whether found behind a hangar, unearthed or recovered from crash sites on land and in the sea, they have been lovingly rebuilt. Some seemingly from only a few remaining usable parts.

We are given a beautiful, large book equally at home in the library or on the coffee table! We are given the histories of these survivors. This is accompanied by both photos of the restored aircraft as well as photos of said aircraft in service.

Academy is re-releasing its well-known 1/700 Titanic, this time in a MPC (Multi-Color-Parts) format with an LED Light Set. Upon opening the box you will find 6 sprues (white, tan, black, brown, bronze and orange), plus the hull –in two parts, black and red hull- and the main ship structure, molded in white.

Construction of this kit is simple and broken down into 24 steps. You basically assemble the main ship structure, bow and aft deck, plus the hull as main subassemblies. The instructions are good and easy to follow and the fit is really good.

Please note this is not a “snap-tite” kit, you will need glue and many of the parts are actually pretty small so this is not a model for kids. I do believe a young modeler could assemble this kit with some adult supervision.

Tony Buttler was born in 1956, and joined High Duty Alloys in Redditch in 1974 as a metallurgist. For nearly 20 years he was closely involved in the testing of aluminum and titanium airframe and engine components for many of the world’s most important airplanes. It was during this timeframe that his interest in military aircraft grew into a passion. Since 1995, Tony has been a freelance aviation historian, with this book being his eighteenth major release. He has also written many titles for the Warpaint series of monographs as well as many articles for most of the popular historical aviation magazines.

One of the best looking aircraft of WWI, in my opinion, is the Albatros series of fighters. This streamlined plywood aircraft was widely used during the war. Flown by many of the great aces such as Manfred von Richtofen it proved itself a worthy warplane. Despite this, the Albatros had a fatal flaw, in that the lower wing would twist and occasionally fail.

The kit contains two sprues of light grey plastic. The plastic has fine engraved panel lines and raised access panels. It is beautifully detailed. There are two frets of photo etch. One is pre-painted, and the other is brass. There is also a set of masks to aid in painting the wheels, an oil cooler, and the red surround on the tail surfaces, should you decide to use that marking option. Decals are printed by Cartograf, so you know they are perfect. There are markings for four aircraft, plus lozenge decals for the wings, along with a sheet of stripes for the ribs.