This new Osprey title is part of their Masterclass books and referred to as "The essential guide for the serious modeller'. Well as you know, to me a serious modeler is an oxymoron as modeling is supposed to be a fun and pleasurable pastime, but we all know people who are quite involved in the hobby and will take all those extra steps to produce a stellar piece of work.

This book will help you to become one of those people.

First off, this one is hardbound and done so with a sort of ring binding that allows the pages to lay flat once the book is opened. This is important for if you are trying to duplicate a procedure, you don't want to have to continually keep the pages from closing on you. Another interesting feature is that the left side pages are color coded to match color guides to the various chapters. Makes it easy to find what you are seeking in this manner.

You would expect a book like this to be full of large, clear, color images with easy to read captions to help out while you duplicate some skill and that is exactly what you get with, on the average, three large images per page.

You would also expect the book to cover as many different subjects and aspects of aircraft modeling as it can and it does do that. You will find everything from working with resin and photo-etch to painting and detailing. It is all here under one cover. Of course, the best engineered kits for the subject are used, and often quite a bit of aftermarket is also included in many of these models.

Just to give you an idea of what's here, I'll run through the various sections:

Brief history of jet aircraft
Building the Eduard 1/48 He-280
The 1/32 Trumpeter Me-262
Tamiya 1/48 Me-262 recce conversion
Revell 1/32 He-162
Hasegawa 1/48 Ar-234B and Ar-234C
Hasegawa 1/32 Me-163
Bronco 1/35 Fi-103 RE4
Scratchbuilt 1/35 V-2 trailer
The final section is on a number of 'Luft 46' builds in both resin and plastic.

This is all followed by sections that contain references and a listing of known kits and an index.

So basically, you are provided with a book full of detailed build articles along with some gallery stuff. I was a bit disappointed in that all of the models were in larger scales with 1/72 and smaller being totally ignored aside from mentioning them in the kit list. Still, it is a well written book with nice, clear images and if you have an interest in the subject, you will surely find lots of good information in this one.

December 2012

 For more on the complete line of Osprey books, visit www.ospreypublishing.com or contact them at Osprey Direct, PO Box 140, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2FA, UK. In the US, it is Osprey Direct at 443 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, where you can get a catalogue of available books.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.