Author: Richard A Franks
Published: Dalrymple & Verdun Publishing
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£19.95
Soft back; 120 pages colour and black and white images throughout; line drawings, colour profiles, full colour walk around, individual aircraft histories
ISBN 978-1-905414-10-9
Our thanks to Dalrymple and Verdun Publishing for the review copy
Dalrymple and Verdun Publishing are producing some very informative titles that seem to focus on just the right subjects. Right, in the sense that they subjects haven’t been well-covered in the past and definitely not from a scale modeller’s perspective? For example the Avro Shackleton and Gloster Javelin are two previous titles in this ‘series’.
You certainly get plenty for your money: plenty of black and white and colour reference images, colour profiles, line drawings and of course that ‘must-have’ for us scale modellers, the full colour walk around section towards the back of the text.
The first pages of the book chart the history and development through the Types 508, 525 and 544 to the Scimitar. The Type 508 featured a very attractive ‘V’ tail and clean lines. It is interesting to note that of the original one hundred Type 544 (named Scimitar in March 1957), only 76 were actually built.
The book simply oozes quality images that will help with any scale model project involving the type – especially in terms of weathering detail. The final section of the book includes a full colour walk around and although not extensive, does include most of those need-to-know areas like the cockpit, ejection seat, wing-fold and wheel wells. Some captions for this area would have been useful, despite the fact that some are clearly obvious in nature.
A real highlight of the book are the excellent all-view colour profiles and these feature some stunning colour schemes like the light blue overall and white Royal Aircraft Establishment Scimitar F.1 aircraft XD229.
With the arrival of the new Xtrakit Scimitar kit in 1:72nd scale, this new title is very well timed. Frankly (pardon the pun) this is an excellent resource for all scale modellers interested in not only the Supermarine Scimitar, but Royal Naval aviation in general.
Highly recommended.