This is the tenth offering in Kagero's Famous Airplanes series. It is in the usual 9x12 softbound format that Kagero uses for a lot of its books and contains 92 pages. Like most of their books, it is in both Polish and English.

The Albatros was the standard German fighter for well over a year and served from its introduction until the end of the war. It was somewhat different in that it used a plywood fuselage instead of the usual wood frame and fabric of others. This allowed for a more aerodynamic airframe and it along with the Mercedes engine, is what allowed it to be so fast. It also had a major design flaw in the later D.III and D.V versions in that it was a sesquiplane with a smaller lower wing. This wing had but a single spar and tended to flex more than other lower wing designs. So much so that failure of the lower wing was an issue. This was mitigated to some extent by adding a smaller brace from the outer V strut, but really never fully cured it.

Regardless of its design fault, the Albatros was quite successful and flown by many German aces including von Richthofen. While many planes were garishly colored, many also flew with the unpainted wooden fuselage. Until the introduction of the Fokker D.VII, it was pretty much the standard fighter. Post war, a number of these aircraft were used by other nations. Since Kagero is a Polish company, it is not unusual that the use of the type in Polish service is also covered in this book.

This book is divided into three major sections. The first covers the history of the aircraft. This provides a number of great period photos and is where you will find some scale drawings, mostly in 1/72 scale. The second section covers well over half the book and is basically three kit builds; one of the Eduard 1/48 kit and two of the Wingnut Wings 1/32 kit. This second section has many very large full color photos. The final section consists of several pages of color profiles and camouflage of several Albatros fighters. 

If you are a fan of kit builds and want a nice history plus some extras, then this is a book I know you will like.

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