This latest book from Valiant Wings covers the Heinkel He-162. This was the winner of a competition to build an inexpensive point defense fighter that used a minimum of strategic materials and could be flown by the current crop of poorly trained pilots that were the norm for the Luftwaffe at the time.

It was amazing enough that the aircraft was able to be built, but equally amazing is that it managed to see operational service. True, that operational service was mostly moving the unit from base to base as the war situation deteriorated, but it fly a few operational sorties. One of its pilots claimed a kill in the last days, but that has never been verified by Allied records.

In line with others in the series, the author tells the complete story of the type, including its operational use. There is also a great section that covers all the prototypes and uses drawings to show the differences. It also provides drawings on those that were planned as at this stage of the war, there really were not a lot of variations in the two production aircraft save for armament. Thanks to a half dozen complete survivors, we get a well done close-up section with both modern museum and period photographs.

A very nicely done section on the various camouflage and markings schemes applied though they are all rather similar. There is a kit build article and that concentrates on the Tamiya 1/48 kit, probably the best around. There are also nice kits in 1/32 and 1/72 for those who like to model those scales.  A complete listing of kits, decals, accessories, and books rounds out what is a very nice volume.

In all, a great addition to the Valiant Wings library and one that you should seriously consider picking up.

May 2018

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