THE MOST AMAZING RESEARCH RESOURCE YOU'LL EVER FIND!

As a writer, I have been waiting for these new "books" to show up for the last three years; anyone who could see the power of the internet in publishing, and the possibilities with computers that had more than 150 Mhz power and over a 1 GB hard drive could forecast that amazing stuff was imminent. Imagine, a CD-ROM "book" with everything you ever wanted to know on the subject matter: developmental history, hundreds of still photos (some of which never published before), more detail than you knew you could ask for, bits of history never seen before, and movies to set your heart pounding as you ran - not walked - to the model stash to pull out a kit and started to work, full of enthusiasm like you never felt since the first kit you tried to do "good."

They're here.

To me it's no surprise that the model company that would release the first of these is Tamiya, and it's also no surprise that the publisher is Cassell & Co., in London. If you've been collecting history books on aviation and the Second World War seriously for more than a few years, I will bet that if you go though your book shelf, and check the publisher's page, you will find more than a few of the books you have were published by Cassell & Co, London, starting in the 1950s, and that many of those books were "cutting edge" when first published and have yet to be superceded. The tradition continues here.

At present, there are six of these "books": three aircraft and three armor subjects. Not surprisingly, they cover airplanes and AFVs you can make from Tamiya kits: the Messerschmitt Bf-109 series, the Supermarine Spitfire, the North American P-51 Mustang, the Russian T-34, the German Tiger, and the American Sherman. Not being a creepie-crawlie guy, I do not have first hand experience of the armor subjects, but - knowing Tamiya - I am certain those CD-ROMs are absolutely the equal of the aviation works I have been able to review.

These are interactive CD-ROMS, featuring archive and contemporary film footage, 360 panormamas of interiors and exteriors, scale plans in 1/72 and 1/48 of all variants, camouflage and marking guides for representative aircraft of all variants, technical data files for each variant, and development and operational service histories.

Like the advertising says: "Everything but the smell."

If the CDs only had the contemporary film footage, most of you would consider them cheap at their price of US$49.95. For instance, the Spitfire CD-ROM has footage of the 21-Spitfire flypast at Duxford last summer; you can sit back, crank the audio, and be bathed in the song of the Merlin and the growl of the Griffon as 21 - count 'em! - Spitfires crank up, taxi out, take off, and make repeated passes overhead, all filmed from "the best seat in the house." Or you can fire up the P-51 CD-ROM and see the "Gathering of Mustangs" in Florida last year - watch Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson do an airshow routine like what they used to do to the Luftwaffe in 1944 - all with appropriate sound.

You "rivet counters" will find yourself in Eighth or Ninth Heaven (forget the Seventh) with the 360 computer graphic panoramas of interiors and exteriors. These are done from photos. In the cockpit, it's like you're sitting where the stick should be as you start with the instrument panel and work your way around. And if there's anything you want to look at in greater detail, click it with your mouse and then enlarge it to your heart's content. You can do more than count rivets - you can zero in on the pilot's seat and count the stitches in the back pad! As far as the exteriors are concerned, did you ever want to open all those "inspection" plates? You can, here, and look inside in detail you never could really.

All of the research, particularly the camouflage and markings profiles, are state of the art as regards the latest information on such obscura as late war Luftwaffe camo, etc.

Some modelers who have looked into these CD-ROMs have complained that the walkarounds do not provide full access to everything they would want, which comes down to essentially a walkaround allowing them to count every item in the entire airplane. The creators of these CD-ROMs have aimed them at the more "average" segment of modelers: people who might want to detail the cockpit, or the engine, or the other parts of an airplane one sees opened up on most "opened up" models.

Folks, generally I aim for restraint in my reviews of new products, particularly with new media. Believe it or not, this review is restrained. These three CD-ROMs on three of the most popular airplane modeling subjects in existence are simply The Best Research Material Ever. If you wonder what the next will be, consider that Tamiya makes three Fw-190 kits. Eventually, they're going to have one of these for every kit they do.

Oh! Happy Day! - Oh! Happy Day......

Minimum Computer Requirements to fully operate these CD-ROMs:

For PCs:

PC-Pentium 166 Mhz compatible, or faster; Windows 95/987 or NT4 or later; 32MB RAM, 4x CD-ROM Player; SVGA Graphics; Windows compatible Mouse; 200MB Hard Disk Space;, QuickTime 3 or Higher.

For Mac:

Power PC120; 32MB RAM; 4x CD-ROM player; QuckTime 3 or higher; System 8.1 or later.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that averages over 2,300 visits a day, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.