Guest Review by Chris Banyai-Riepl

This new CD from Scale Publications offers an interesting and rarely seen subject: the dismantling and transporting of an aircraft. What makes this truly remarkable is that it is a B-36 that is being moved. With a length of 162 feet and a wingspan of 230 feet, this is not an easy plane to move!

The title "Moving the Last Peacemaker" is fitting in many ways. The aircraft depicted was indeed the last B-36 to roll off the assembly line on August 10, 1954. It also was the last B-36 to be retired, making its last flight from Biggs AFB, Texas on February 12, 1959, to Fort Worth, where it was put on display at Amon Carter Field. In 1969, due to the closing of the airport, the plane had to move. In an ambitious plan, this B-36 fulfilled another last, that being the last B-36 to run all six of its piston engines. The Peacemaker Foundation had hoped to fly the plane from the airport to nearby Meacham Field, where it would be restored and maintained as a flying(!) museum. The Air Force stepped in and shot this plan down, forcing people to rethink their plans. This is where this CD comes in, chronicling the move from Amon Carter Field to its new location 30 miles away.

To sum up the story of this fascinating bird, over the next several decades, teams of volunteers worked painstakingly to restore the last B-36. Talks were constantly underway with the City of Fort Worth to try and build a museum or display area for this large aircraft, but eventually all options fell through with Fort Worth. During that time, the B-36 managed to be fully restored. The B-36 is not homeless, though, as it has been accepted at the Pima Air Museum and will be transported there soon, where hopefully it will be assembled for one final time.

This CD-ROM is set up to automatically run in a slideshow format. There are nearly 900 photos presented here, and just about every possible angle is covered. When a plane is disassembled for transport, the potential for seeing some unique areas are high, and Richard Marmo has captured many of these. Examples include the propeller hubs, wheel axles, and rear instrument panel wiring. Superdetailers could go nuts with all of this information! The photos are all black and white, and some are captioned.

The nature of the CD, though, leaves a couple things to be desired. First, the instructions state that the viewer must set their screen size to 800x600. This is not entirely true, as higher resolutions can see the images, but they will be stretched out to the larger size, resulting in pixelization and a loss of detail. Second, as this is a slideshow, there is no way to print these photos for use in modeling. Unless you have a computer screen right next to your modeling bench, it will be difficult to use this as a modeling reference.

From a historical perspective, though, this is a great series of photos, and will form an excellent complement to the recent B-36 books that have come out in the last 5 years or so. My thanks to Scale Publications for the review sample.

Guest Review By Chris Banyai-Riepl
 
This latest title from Scale Publications takes a look at the P-38 Lightning, including the XP-58 Chain Lightning. The format is simple to navigate and quickly brings the viewer to the meat of the CD, the photos. The table of contents breaks things down by aircraft type, with each section having any number of photos (the more popular types obviously having more photos). In addition to the photo pages, there are various documents and a serial number list.

For those interested in artwork, the CD also includes several paintings by Tony Weddel. These provide a colorful portrayal of the P-38 that nicely complement the photo sections. Other artwork included on the CD is a separate page of nothing but P-38 nose art. This is a very nice addition to the CD, with details on many P-38 nose art that are not often seen. My only complaint is that the large sized images could be a bit larger to show more detail, especially with the nose art pages.

With over 350 photos on this one CD, this makes a great single source for P-38 resource material. The simple navigation ensures that you will find appropriate images quickly, and there should be plenty of new material for modelers wanting to do something a little different with their next P-38 kit.
The CD-ROM is designed for the Windows operating system, but Mac users should not have much of a problem viewing it either (although the autorun feature may not work). My thanks to Scale Publications for the review sample.

by

Jim Upton

One of the greatest modern era fighter jets ever produced by the United States has to be the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. Known by many as "the missile with a man in it", it was truly a revolutionary design.  Nothing like it had ever been seen and the number of firsts attributed to it is mindboggling. First and foremost, it went from design to an operational combat fighter in only one year! Beyond that, it was the world's first Mach 2 combat aircraft and was also the first to mount an airborne 6,000-round-per-minute Gatling gun. If by now you're thinking that the aircraft needs a book devoted to it, then Specialty Press was thinking the same way.

That book is now available as a member of their excellent Warbird Tech Series. Familiar to Warbird Tech readers, Jim Upton was a professional flight engineer for Lockheed and was the project aerodynamicist on the F-104. In other words, he was the guy who made sure the darn thing would fly. Who better to author a book on the F-104?

Chapter 1 deals with the aircraft's origins, as it should. Particularly fascinating are the nine different design concepts that eventually led to the F-104 as we know it. From there we move on to chapters dealing with aircraft features (inlet design, engines and so on) and flight testing.

Chapter 4 is a complete rundown of all F-104 models, from the XF-104 to the F-104S. Weapons systems get their own chapter, as do international operatiors.  Chapter 7 deals with all kinds of modifications, including a design for an escape capsule and the ZELL (Zero Length Launch) concept. One thing that'll get your attention is a U-2 nose radome grafted onto an F-104.  And let's not overlook the civilian F-104s. Those range from the NASA birds to privately owned ones.

For the modelbuilders in the crowd, you'll find a 2-page Model Kit Guide in the back of the book that's written by yours truly. Basically a round-up piece covering recent and currently available F-104 kits.

Photographically, you won't have any argument. The 8 1/2" x 11" softcover book contains 250 b & w photos and drawings, along with 8 pages of beautiful color shots. Probably the strangest photo in the lot is a bright orange F-104 fuselage with an eagle painted down it's length. No longer an aircraft, it's been converted into a racecar in order to attempt a new land speed record.

You get all of this for the ususal Warbird Tech price of only $16.95. Available as usual from bookstores and better hobby shops. Or order direct from Specialty Press. You can also call them direct at 1-800-895-4585. Just keep in mind that when ordering from Specialty Press, there is a $4.95 shipping and handling charge added to each order.

by Kev Darling

If you love the Supermarine Spitfire, especially those  powered by that magnificent Rolls-Royce Merlin, this new publication from Specialty Press will definitely get your attention.

Carrying the title Merlin-Powered Spitfires and ably authored by Kev Darling, this single volume does a dandy job of describing the Merlin Spits. Let’s take a look and see what’s between the covers.

The book starts where it should, with a brief introduction that traces the Spitfire design development from it’s beginnings in 1929 in the form of the Supermarine S.6B racing seaplane to the first flight of the Spitfire prototype on the 6th of March 1936.

Up next is a chapter that focuses primarily on the development of the prototype and include some truly gorgeous photos of the cockpit interior that will be extremely valuable to any modeler planning on superdetailing a Spitfire cockpit. You’ll also find excellent exploded drawings of the wing spar design, as well as detail drawings of the main gear design and aft fuselage.

The introduction and first two chapters have already consumed nearly 30% of the entire book.  From this point on, Kev Darling concentrates on the combat life of the Merlin Spitfires.  You’ll find detail drawings of the bomb mounts, wing gun fairings, skin plating layout, desert filter configuration and on and on. Still another chapter deals with the Photorecon Spits, including the fascinating information that one particular PR variant was painted overall light pink!

Eight pages of color, including one close-up of an uncowled Merlin, just make this volume that much better. Once you get past the color section, you have more information on the navalized Spits that were known as Seafires. In the back of the book will be found four pages of important characteristics, another page of engine data on the marvelous Merlin and a final page providing significant dates in the aircraft’s history.

All of this information is packed into a standard 8 ½” x 11” softcover package comprised of 104 pages. In this volume, you get 160 b&w photos and 8 pages of color shots. Priced at a very reasonable $16.95 from your local hobby shop/bookstore. You can also order direct from Specialty Press.  If you prefer the phone,  their toll free number is 1-800-895-4585.  Keep in mind that a $4.95 shipping and handling fee is added to each order.