Though I had heard of Wing Masters, I'd never taken the time to actually look through the magazine. My thought was "It is in French so what good is a magazine I can't read?" Well, they say that one never knows what one is missing until one tries something. In this case, I was quite surprised at what waited for me inside the pages of this particular issue.

Yes, I cannot read most of it, however, it is quite possible to get the gist of an article without too much trouble (after all, much of the English language comes from French, thanks to Willy the Conqueror and his little jaunt across the channel from Normandy in 1066. There are also several excellent 'conversion' sites that will translate various languages into English if you really MUST know what is being said.

Basically you get a large (11¾ x 9 inch) magazine that has 84 pages, slick printing and oodles of photographs. The photography is first rate and there is lots of it. Not only does the magazine include model articles, but for most of them, there is an accompanying historical section. Now I don't know about you, but to me, this is what makes or breaks a modeling magazine. Generally after reading about a model, I like to start to see not only what is available kit-wise, but to start to dig through references to see what can be modeled. Wing Masters offers that important start to the reference search (which is one of the really fun parts of model building).

Enough on the background, so what's in this particular issue?

• A 1/144 Minicraft Super Connie in the markings of a Brazilian airline. This is followed by a brief history of the type and 7 color profiles.

• The 1/48 Classic Airframes P-6E Hawk. This has another article with the P-6 and variants historical section.

• Roden's 1/72 Gotha G.III is next, with an article on Gotha bombers in general.

• The Ki-43-I Oscar by Hasegawa in 1/48 is the next article.

• Then an article on the Flying Tigers. This is part one and includes several large profiles of not only the P-40s but also some of the antagonists. This includes several color period photographs of the Tigers.

• The next build article ties into the previous article quite well as there is a review of the Monogram (!) 1/48 P-40C. This model is superbly done and you'd never guess it was the Monogram kit.

• Hasegawa's P-38J done as Dick Bong's plane is next, again with a historical article to tie things together.

• Moving to 1/32 is a build review of the Tamiya A6M5 Zero.

• The final article is on the Italeri 1/72 MC.202.

All of the articles are mostly photographs. These are not only quite large, but are also very well done. Those for the historical sections chosen for clarity. The models themselves are all very well done and highly detailed, include the usual scratch building, and aftermarket stuff. With few exceptions, they were not straight out of the box and I can easily imagine that they all took a considerable amount of time to build. As one expects from a modeling magazine, there are the usual sections on new kits, decals and other accessories.

I'm not sure just how widespread distribution is of this magazine here in the US or where you live, but I'd recommend picking up a copy the next time you see one. You will not be disappointed.

Review copy courtesy of Wing Masters

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has well over 150,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.