One of the favorite USN fighter units amongst modelers and enthusiasts is the Sundowners. On their F-8s, F-4s and F-14s, they were well known for the plane's shark mouth and sunray markings on the fin. However, this unit started in August of 1942 as VF-11 and was initially equipped with Wildcats. They flew these on deployment to Guadalcanal in April of 1943 as, along with VF-21 they were the last to fly this aircraft in prolonged combat. Their next tour was with the F6F in late 1944 aboard the USS Hornet, their only combat cruise of the war. Post war the unit moved on to the F8F Bearcat and during Korea flew the F9F Panther. That was followed by the F9F Cougar, the FJ-3 Fury and the F11F Tiger before moving on to the F-8 Crusader and action in Vietnam. The unit transitioned to the F-4B and stayed with it and the updated F-4N until moving on to their final aircraft, the F-14 Tomcat, which they flew from 1978 until the unit was disestablished in 1995.

Fortunately for many of us, the unit re-appeared in 2008 after VFC-13 det Key West was renamed VFC-111. This renewal is really a bit of a footnote as the long unchanged history of the Sundowners from 1942 to 1995 was effectively broken in 1995.

In his book, Barrett Tillman tells the story of the Sundowners from day one to the present. It is full of pilot and crew stories, the sort of things that make this series so much fun to read. It also is superbly researched and full of period photos of men and aircraft. Thanks to the additional work of Henk van der Lugt, the VF-111 historian, we have even more information than was available before.

Like all books in this series, there are nine pages of full color profies. One oddity is that a few of the Tomcat profiles have had the ventral strakes either chopped or missing as the cut and paste person wasn't quite as careful as he could have been.  Despite that, it is really a superb book and it is one that you can buy with confidence that you are getting the best.

April 2010

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