Valiant Wings has produced another of its Airframe Extra editions and this one is the very timely volume on the Battle of Britain. The British celebrate this event a bit more than usual every five years or so and when there is a milestone, such as this year's 75th anniversary, even more so. I can recall the 50th was resplendent with all sorts of specially painted military planes and special model boxings just as we have today. Even more so in regards to modelers thanks to the resurgence of Airfix under Hornby's tutelage and the considerable number of BoB themed kits that have come from their production site in the last year or so.

This book, provides us with six additional pages to cover the event and starts with 24 pages on a history of the event. As was rightly mentioned, there is no firm start or stop to the Battle of Britain as the Luftwaffe attacked the UK from before and after the 'official' dates. However, those dates provided are probably chosen for the intensity of the attacks as much as anything and the real cause for stopping was more than likely Hitler's change of focus on preparing for the invasion of Russia as anything else.

The next major section is on the model building. This starts with a pair of 1/72 kits, both built by the same modeler and covering the Airfix Defiant and the Airfix Hurricane I. As is the case with many magazine modelers, these kits are modified from box stock and have as much aftermarket as can be justified or available installed. The third kit is the lone 1/48 offering and is built by the same modeler that does the next three 1/32 kits. The Eduard Bf-110C is the subject of the quarter scale build and in this work, the builder acknowledges that the kit is designed to be built with everything open and will require lots of filler and 'adjustment' if one wishes to close things up.

The 1/32 builds were the ones in which I was the most interested. The first of these is the Revell 1/32 Spitfire IIa. I was curious as to how the builder would take care of its many shortcomings and what he would have to say about it, especially after Lee Kolosna's rather damning article. While many of the glitches were mentioned (and I learned about a couple of new ones), they were presented in a very low key, matter of fact way. Perhaps influenced by the full back cover advert for this kit? No mention was made on the wrong wheels, or metal ailerons, or misshaped rear canopy section and it turns into a generally positive article. The next build is the Trumpeter 1/32 Bf-109E. This kit has some errors in terms of massively wrong cowl machine guns and a canopy that is too narrow at the top, but the actual number of glitches is (relatively) minor. Yet the builder recommends one of the other 1/32 kits so it is obvious that the competition is tight when it comes to 109s. The third kit is the Special Hobby 1/32 Fiat G.50. This kit also has a few areas that need improvement, but overall, gets satisfactory marks. You will notice that in the 1/32 section, the three major combatants from the UK, Germany, and Italy are covered. This modeler also pretty much sticks to out of the box, using no aftermarket aside from perhaps belts and what's in the spares bin.

There are a total of 76 full color profiles covering all three air arms with these profiles being inserted into the edition in groups, starting with the British, then German, then Italian participants. For many modelers, these sections are as important an aspect of any modeling book as the build articles and the history section. It all helps to make a very useful and interesting edition that will appeal to all who read it. I highly recommend picking this one up and am sure you will be glad you did.

October 2015

For more on Valiant Wings, including getting this book, visit www.valiant-wings.co.uk. Thank you for the review copy.

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