Grumpy Old Modeller - The Bookshelf

What's off the stack?

Colours and Shapes

These two themes play a large part in my selection of modellings subjects (the third leg of the tripod is probably nostalgia) and these two books cover an aspect each. The first comes with the twin recommendations of being compiled and written by Dick Ward and produced and published by Roger Chesneau's Ad Hoc Publications, and addresses the colour question; the shape of the Jaguar is very familiar, though it's good to see the radome-nosed IM variant in what was called, well before the Jaguar's time, "glorious Technicolor". The coverage is what you see on the cover, with aircraft of each unit of each operator being illustrated in colour showing the unit markings - always, as you will know, a principal interest of mine - and the progressive variations in colour schemes. The squadrons are in numerical order for each service, and the non-operational units are also covered ("raspberry ripple" addicts are well catered for). There are also a considerable number of "special" schemes, frequently marking the disbandment of a unit, or in some cases a notable flying hours achievement. The Armée de l'Air has often gone to town on these, and Dick Ward's collaborator Yves Fauconnier has been assiduous in his compilation; Simon Watson has also been very thorough in his assistance with the Indian Air Force Jaguars. The RAF has had a few colourful Jaguars over the years, culminating in the "spotty" scheme on XX119 that marked the disbandment of 6 Squadron, and I think all of the British and French service and "special" finishes have been covered in decal form over the years; and modellers have been fortunate in having some good kits to which to apply them, at least in 1:72nd scale. The 160 pages are full of carefully chosen colour with very few shots reproduced over two pages, and little coloured background for the text (two of my current bete noirs (and yes, that 16 Squadron Jaguar is here). An excellent companion to the author's Lighting and Phantom squadron books, my only regret is that it's probably impossible to revise his Hunter book with the same treatment because of the lack of colour photos available for the type's early years of squadron service. "Jaguar Squadrons" is a fitting tribute to a type which had its detractors during its early years, but which at the end many of us thought was withdrawn, at least from RAF service, prematurely. Surely someone could have taken the hint from the "Flashman" colour scheme that was trialled in 2002 (page 70) and sent at least the finally upgraded and uprated Jaguars for a last hurrah in Afghanistan.

The series of Secret Projects books from Midland Publishing is now at the point where it demands a bookshelf of its own. Where those issued up to now have been organised by country of origin, starting of course with these from Germany which have become known as "Luftwaffe '46", this latest is as you can see devoted to a particular configuration. Of the six sections Britain, Germany and Russian have one each while the USA'a efforts are divided in to three. The British designs go from those of John William Dunne to Barnes Wallis' variable sweep projects and beyond, and many of the German WW II designs are now comparatively well-known, including those of the Horton brothers and Alexander Lippisch, usually in tandem with Messerschmitt. The US contributions are divided in to flying wings from 1935 to 1950 and from 1950 to 1990, and manned tailless aircraft from 1980 to 2030, and unsurprisingly the name of Northrop crops up regularly. The final chapter is that devoted to Soviet tailless aircraft fron the nineteen twenties to the 'eighties, including some seriously large designs, a category beloved of Russian designers. This volume is illustrated with photos, both of genuine aircraft and of models, with small plans and with artists' renderings; and the dust jacket by Timothy O'Brian is an excellent "taster" for the contents; we already have a kit of the B-49; perhaps someone - Unicraft? - would complete the model picture with a Cheranovsky BICh-26 or two. Please!

ian projects,