I was surprised the other day by a parcel from Guildhall Publications. Now I'll be honest and tell you that I had not heard of these folks so it was with much interest that I opened the padded bag. Inside were a number of very nicely done soft-cover books and magazines. The first one was one that I had seen before, Aircraft Modeller International. From what I understand, these are the folks that brought you the now defunct magazines: Quarter Scale Modeller and 72nd Scale Modeller. I had read several issues of QSM and was impressed with the product. The two magazines were combined into one and AMI is the result.

Apparently this issue is the result of a slight revamping of the format. It also seems as if they have done the unprecedented and actually lowered the cover price! As is now de rigueur with modeling magazines, this one is 48 pages and is full color. The quality of the printing is superb and the covers are nice and thick, which will help it survive the much use that this issue will undoubtedly get. As for some stats on the issue, it is in A4 format and is issued bi-monthly (that is every two months).

So what is in the issue? Well, let me go through the Contents table with you. Each of the articles has a name applied to it as is common nowadays. Those that deal with kit builds have a small note outside the main column as to the scale of the kit involved. Not surprisingly, most are to 1/72 scale, since that is really the scale of choice in the UK. Here are the articles:

• Product Gen - short in-box reviews of kits and accessories

• Dornier's Double-Headed Arrow - Dragon 1/72 Do-335A build

• Warm Weather Warrior - Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter in Dominican markings

• Jewels in the Indian Ocean - a brief photo essay on Sri Lankan aviation

• Like a Flea but Wow! - Revell's 1/48 Me-163A build

• Scale Model World 2000 photo report - a photo essay on the UK nationals

• The Mustang - Building a 1/72 Academy B-17F Flying Fortress

• Fabulous Fiat - Revell 1/72 Fiat G.91 build

• Occasionally Civil Modeler - This area includes a build of the Hasegawa 1/200 Boeing 767-200 in Ethiopian Airlines Livery (hmm.... sounds familiar!), as well as a 1/200 B.727 and A.320 in Ansett livery.

• Rapid Recce - is a quick rundown of new items

• Mental Mentor - a build of the Sword 1/72 T-34C Mentor

• Letters

The articles are well written by authors who have taken the time to properly research their subjects. All of the kit reviews show the completed kits from various angles and include close-ups. The photography is very good and up to par with others in the market. There is almost no advertising in the magazine. Not sure if this is by design or not. It is certainly unusual in a popular magazine of any sort, especially one that has been around for two years. 

One thing that I have always believed is that the best policy is honesty. When I first read through the magazine, I wasn't sure that I liked all the graphics that are on the pages. My experiences with British modeling magazines has been pretty well limited to Scale Aircraft Modelling and the newer Scale Aviation Modeller International. Being the stodgy type, I have to say that SAMI proved to be a bit too 'new wave' for me and I recently stopped getting it. It seems that magazine publishers feel that we must have 'flash' in our publications. This means background images (yup, just like you find here at M2) and lots of graphics. From my viewpoint, some of this just makes the magazine more difficult to read. AMI has some of this in it, though, thankfully, most of the magazine is devoid of these excesses. The one area that it is most noticeable is in the Civil Modeller section. There are lots of red backgrounds and other distractions in this section. Call me a minimalist, but I like plain white backgrounds and no distracting graphics in magazine articles. 

As I mentioned above, this was a first impression. To be completely fair, I let the magazine sit for a few days and then looked it over again. Still not fond of the background images, especially when combined with smallish type, and I can do without all the red mentioned above. However, the rest of it was much less of a problem and some of it I found I liked (like the light blue column separation stripes). Overall the magazine is well written, well edited, and the subjects contained within are interesting. Ian Hartup, the editor, has put together a magazine that really deserves to succeed. Hope he realizes that some of us are a bit out of touch with what is the latest and greatest and makes concessions for us!

If you have not seen a copy of Aircraft Modeler International,  you should do yourself a favor and pick up one the next time you see it on the rack. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Copy courtesy of those kind folks at Guildhall Publications. Visit their website for more interesting books and magazines.

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