This book arrived and I must say that I was impressed from the outset. The quality of the book and the material contained inside is typical JaPo. The title sounds like it is just about the Czechoslovak unit, No.311 Squadron, but this book is about a whole lot more than that.

The B-24 was the most produced American airplane in WWII. Its use by Coastal Command is better known in England but not so well known in the US. The use of the Liberator as a precision bomber in the US has overshadowed the vitally important mission of U-Boat patrol. This book fills that void.

JaPo is well known for packing their books with a plethora of information. This one is no different. There are 320 pages of text, photos and color profiles. There are 550 photos with a number of them in color. The 70 color profiles are really impressive and show the differences in turrets, radar, antennas and anti-shipping ordinance.

This is a new version of many Riich Universal Carrier’s and is the Airborne Version. The Universal carrier was changed to reduce its weight to enable it to be carrier in the Hamilcar Glider. This included removal and reduction of the armor plate and removal of all unnecessary equipment.

I had built the Tamiya Universal carrier many moons ago and I thought that was a great version but this excels in every area and now I must go and buy the other version of the Universal carrier released by rich.

The kit contains

• 7 sprues molded in light grey styrene
• 1 clear sprue
• 3 Photo Etch sheets
• 32 springs
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet.

Construction

The kit is includes a lot of unrequired parts as these are for the standard Universal carrier.

Last year Airfix released a new kit of the B5N2 Kate, the Japanese Navy’s primary torpedo plane for the early part of World War II. The kit includes an option to depict the aircraft with the wings folded or with them fully spread. This set from Scale Aircraft Conversions includes nine drop-in replacements for the kit wing-folds and landing gear.

Earlier this year Airfix released this Dogfight Double set which combines it new Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bomber and its new Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat kit. The Dogfight Double kits are designed to allow the modeler to depict aircraft from a specific historical incident by providing markings for two specific aircraft in the kit. This set is designed to commemorate a confrontation that occurred on June 4, 1942 when Wildcats of VF-3 intercepted Kate torpedo bombers during the second air attack on the USS Yorktown. The kit decals provide markings for the Wildcat flow by LCDR. Jimmy Thatch, the commanding officer of VF-3 during the afternoon raid and the B5N2 Kate flown by Lt. Jouchi Tomonaga of the Hiryu. The box art depicts Thatch’s shoot down of the Kate, but not before Tomonaga launched his torpedo towards the Yorktown.

Add On Parts, from Belgium, produces diorama accessories in many different scales. They also have some upgrade sets for armor and offer various model building tools and books.

This set is comprised of one sheet of photo etched buckets, in two different styles, along with the bucket bottoms and handles.