Valiant Wings Airframe Constructor No1. The P-51 Mustang

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Airframe Constructor No1. The P-51 Mustang

Valiant Wings

This is the first in what I imagine will be a great series of books from Valiant Wings, that take one particular model and describe the processes and challenges throughout a build. In this case it’s of the Zoukei-Mura 1:32 P-51D Mustang. Inside the glossy cover there are sixty four pages of information, starting with the preface, which covers the history of the P-51. The rest of the book is on the build itself. The pages are very well printed and the photography of each stage of build is superb.

Rather than an out of the box build the author, Daniel Zambaride Suarez has taken the standard kit and modified it with some fairly simple scratchbuilt items to build a post war aircraft of the Guatemalan Air Force. The author has written and interesting build narrative which precedes the build pictures and explains his reasoning behind the build, how certain effects were achieved and how he painted and weathered the completed model. After this there are thirty six pages of photographs showing each stage of the build. Each picture is annotated stating the process of building, painting and weathering each assembly, plus any additions which were scratchbuilt. Even if you weren’t building the ZM kit the book is still a very useful reference of the various techniques that can be used on any model.

After the build section there is a small section on how to paint a bare metal scheme including weathering, which some may not agree with, but it may be somewhat exaggerated, but could still be useful. After this there are five pages of colour profiles, each page with five different schemes, all nicely drawn by Richard Caruana. The profiles are followed by a six page walkround of P-51D in the markings of Ser No. 413704 along with diagrams taken from the pilots manual. The last couple of pages consist of lists for all the aftermarket items available for 1:32 scale P-51’s plus the ones available from Zoukei-Mura themselves specifically for their first P-51D release.

Conclusion[/size]
Considering this is the first book in the series I think Valiant Wings have done very well indeed. It feels like a quality book which also really shows in the photography. The brief history at the front along with the period photos is a nice touch, as are the side views and walkround, all of which will come in very handy to anyone wishing to build a P-51. The build section itself is an absolute mine of information and I hope to use some of the techniques in my future builds.

Highly recommended

Review sample courtesy of