NDB16

With the Su-25 and the Alpha Jet being distributed now, we're concentrating on our next two books. These should be ready by the end of June. The first one is going to be on the new European transport aircraft: the A-400M. In this book, we hope to show you the aircraft in every detail and for this, we have photos of aircraft from all air forces operating it! If someone wants specific photos, just let us know, we can still make additional photos! And we've got some pretty cool air-to-air photos too! The second book, we're keeping a surprise for the moment... Nic

Here's such a photo: They all have bird droppings on the top of the fin. Look at weathering on the tail of the aircraft in the front; you'd need a lot of maskoll to get this effect !! Nic

Thank you so much for your feedback! And you are right; going through the photos during lay-out, I often thought "if someone paints his model like this jet, everyone would say: this is way too much weathering!" Some look like they have been weathered for years and then painted over partially with a large shoe brush! And the thing is, it isn't just one aircraft in one air force, you can find them in many countries, from Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia... It's like crew saying "ow, just stick some paint on it, nobody cares!" Another thing many aircraft have (even the brand new ones, like the Su-25 SM3-9): bird droppings on the vertical tail! In some photos there are 5 or 6 aircraft in a line-up and they all have them! Nic

Thank you so much for the positive feedback! We're working hard on the next set of books that should be ready in June. The way it looks now, we'll have 6 more new books in the series this year! Nic

The second new book that will be available as of March 31 2021 is a 116 page book on the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet. It contains over 260 photos and covers every aspect of the small jet trainer that was also used as a small attack aircraft. Here's the cover of the book with reference DH-018: This is the first time so many detailed photos are assembled in one book of this agile little jet. Photos include the A-version, that was used by Germany and later sold to many countries, such as Portugal, and the E-version of France. Photos include aircraft from Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany, UK, Thailand, Morocco, Nigeria, and more. Here are a few previews: A huge chapter on the aircraft's maintenance is included. 18 pages ! Again, this book will be available from our website www.hmh-publications.com or from you favourite store! Nic

We're proud to announce that we will be releasing 2 new books in the Duke Hawkins series on March 31. The first one, with reference DH-017 will be on the Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot. This is a 116 page book, showing both action and details. Not just the basic version of the Su-25, but also many of the updated versions, including the Miming from Georgia and the Su-25SM3-9 from Russia. A lot of details is captured in the +260 photos, including cockpit photos of the different versions, fuselage, landing gear, wings, ... and a huge maintenance chapter. Here are a few previews: Photos were made of aircraft from Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, North Macedonia, and many more countries. This book will be available as of March 31 on www.hmh-publications.com or from your favourite book or modelling store! Nic

Those are interesting suggestions, Chris! We're working on some aircraft that haven't been covered in detail before, so that is always a challenge. But some of what you mentioned is in production! Keep the suggestions coming! Nic

In April our next two books will be presented - and I'll do that here, of course - and our Mirage 2000 book, which is now sold out, will be available again. We've got plenty more aircraft (and helicopters) in the planning, but I am really interested to know which aircraft you would like us to make books about. Please post your suggestions here. It can be fighters, trainers, tankers, transport aircraft, helicopters, bombers, ... I'm looking forward to your feedback! Nic

I can do that! So, our website is www.hmh-publications.com. It is a simple site, but it gives a good idea of what we do. Our books can be bought from us, or from many shops around Europe, some in Asia and North America. The latter get their books through our distributor Casemate Publishers. At the moment, we have produced 18 books in the last 3,5 years. The subjects are: Sepecat Jaguar, F-16, Mirage 2000, MiG-29 Fulcrum, Panavia Tornado, Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Viggen, F/A-18 (Legacy) Hornet, C-130, Mirage F.1, Harrier II, MiG-31, Mirage III/5/50, A-4 Skyhawk, Phantom II and Marchetti SF.260. We also made a book on the Spanish aircraft carrier Juan Carlos I, with a lot of action of Harriers, helicopters and landing craft. The 18th is a limited edition book on the Belgian Air Force F-16 Demo Team, called "Dark Falcon". We don't have any left, but some resellers still have some. The Dark falcon is a special F-16 for me, because I am one of the designers of the livery and I get to make all the badges, T-shirts, mugs, and other stuff. We even did a very limited edition kit of it in 1/48, with the Kinetic F-16 MLU and Syhart decals in a specially designed box. We're currently working on quite a few books and new ideas. With some luck, our next book will be released by the end of March 2021.

Just a few weeks ago, one of our newest books was released: 196 pages on the F-4E/F/EJ, RF-4C/E and QF-4E. It took a fair amount of time to get it done, but it's finally here! In it, we have jets from Greece, Germany, Turkey, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Egypt and USAF. And we were lucky to have to rarely seen stuff, like this: This is a view in a maintenance hangar in Iran! Many parts of the jets are reverse-engineered in Iran in order to keep the aircraft operational. Not only a lot of details in these photos, but also some great ideas for a diorama! A lot of Japanese Phantoms in this book too. The RF-4E, but also the EJs converted to the recce-role. Each of the 3 possible pods that are carried on the centreline position, is shows in detail. A big chapter is included on the QF-4E target drones, showing all details, as well as the drone pilot's post. And these jets can be a great inspiration for a highly weathered kit too: So, next to these 6 pages, there are 190 more!

I'm proud to announce that we started a subforum in the "Shops, manufacturers & vendors" part of the forum. We will keep you informed there on our books, reprints, plans, ideas, and new releases. I would like to thank Mike from Britmodeller to help us and allowing us to set this up. Our books are photographical portraits on aircraft, showing both action and detail and we hope to release at least 4 new books each year. So far, we've released 18 books, two new books are scheduled to be released by the end of March 2021. Please feel free to browse the subforum! Take care, Nic

Hello Britmodellers! We're proud to start a subforum here on Britmodeller to introduce our books. Being modellers ourselves, we started the Duke Hawkins book series little over 3 years ago to make books on aircraft, showing them both in action and in detail. Our first book was released in the summer of 2017 and was on the Sepecat Jaguar - and we had the ambition to release at least 4 books every year. So far, we're on schedule. In the subforum, I will present additional photos to our books, new books in preparation, but also I hope to get some of your suggestions. I'd like to start with a photo of which I'm really proud - it was sent to us by someone flying a jet that was the subject of one of our books: a MiG-31 pilot with our book on the same aircraft. Needless to say that I'm building a kit of Red 04 soon! Some of the profit of the sales of our books goes to restoration projects; at the moment, we are supporting the Mirage 5 project of Team BD09 in Belgium and the Starfighter project in Volkel - The Netherlands - but hope to do more. I will keep you informed in the forum about those as well. So, welcome and thanks for taking the time to browse here! Nic

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! I just got info back from a Russian pilot that I could ask the question - through a friend, through a friend and Rob is the winner: the dots indicate the necessity to inspect the bays: a yellow dot is for a pre-flight inspection, green and blue for checks in between flights on the same day and red for end of day inspections. Knowing that some panels have to be opened by removing a ton of screws, such as on the nose of the Su-24 MR, that needs a lot of time and discipline! Thank you all for your help, I really appreciate it! Nic

Thank you for the feedback! It is true that these dots are mostly on the panel edges, but it puzzles me that there are variations. On the tip of the nose of the Su-25, it's just red, on other parts, such as the step to get into the cockpit it's red, blue and green and on other parts, like the air intake there is only a yellow dot. And with the Su-24 I found all 4 colours together! Thank you for posting the links too, I'll just need to find someone who can read Russian. If I find it, I'll let you know! Nic

I'm doing research on some Russian aircraft and I found that some, like the Su-24 or Su-25 have on several parts of the fuselage coloured dots painted on them, ofter near panel lines. I've seen red, blue, yellow and green dots. Does anyone know what they stand for, I'm curious about them. Thanks in advance for any feedback! Nic

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First post here, so I hope this is okay... Sorry, no commercial sales or advertising unless by prior agreement with Britmodeller.