If you recall a few months back, Chris Reed offered the first in this series, the F-18 Hornet. It was a good start into the world of CD book and these two provide basically the same format with the books available as either .pdf or .html format. Neither one of the CDs is 'self-starting' so one must access them via the 'run' menu. While it would be nice to have them open to a title page when inserting the CD, I know zilch about how that is done so perhaps it is more trouble than it is worth.

The CDs offer a good history of the types which include major variants and combat use of the planes in question.  Photos are quite good and from what I've seen, are a lot larger than what was offered on the first CD, a big plus. Most of the really cool images come from official DoD sources, while the close-ups were taken by the author or a good friend of his. These are useful though the placement of them is a touch sporadic in the AV-8B volume.

The A-10 volume has most of the close-ups in one place and it also has a lot more images of aircraft from different units. Again, the majority of images are DoD and are high quality.

Both of the CDs are well worth the $10 as they provide a goodly historical background of the planes and a bunch of very nice images that would be quite helpful to modelers. And it will probably be modelers that will find the most use out these CDs.

If I can make a few suggestions. One is to have a listing of units that have flown the planes along with an image of one aircraft from each squadron. Yeah, it means a bit more work, but the A-10 CD had quite a few of these images already and I'd think that finding the rest shouldn't be that much trouble. Next, have a listing of serials and block numbers. This will help the stats freaks. When doing the close-ups, have them in a logical sequence from one part of the plane to another. If nothing else, have an image map and key close-ups to that image map. Finally, have a quality image on the cover. If it means a small increase in price, then so be it. The cover is the first thing a buyer sees and often makes a purchase decision based on just that. A poor image does not enhance the product.  Just a few suggestions.

Overall, both CDs are something you should look into if your interests are in the aircraft.

 Review CD courtesy of DataView Books.  Order yours direct via the link.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has well over 200,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.