Valiant Wings Focke-Wulf Fw.189 Uhu - Airframe Album 6

[Mike]

The Focke-Wulf Fw.189 Uhu
Valiant Wings Publishing

Here in 1:48 land we've been treated to a new kit from GWH, which is rather nice once you add in the wing spar running through the cockpit that they missed. I built one a few years back when it arrived, and wish I'd had this book then - It would have made the job a lot easier! The Fw.189 was a quirky-looking twin boomed observation aircraft with more glass than your average greenhouse, although not as weird as its competitor for the job, the BV.141, which Valiant have also done a book on, as it happens.

It wasn't exactly a powerful aircraft, but it was well liked by the crews, and good at its job, as well as being able to take a bit of punishment from the Allies swatting at it.

As usual with books from this series, it is broken down into sections, as below, and extends to 112 pages excluding covers, in a portrait oriented perfect-bound glossy softback that has a set of interesting desert profiles on the rear cover. Written as usual by Richard A Franks, it has contributions from renowned profile artist Richard J Caruana, and modellers Libor Jekl and Andy Evans.

Glossary
One page of explanation of various terms and measurements used throughout the book.
Preface
Ten pages discussing the need that led to its development, use and history in service as well as in prototyping.
Technical Description
Forty-nine pages going into great depth on various aspects of the aircraft's construction from armament to the tool-roll carried.
Evolution – Protoype, Production & Projected variants
Fifteen pages of informative drawings showing the differences between the variants, including those that didn't actually see service for various reasons.
Camouflage & Markings
Twenty pages of pictorial reference with plenty of text pointing out the details, including just over six pages of side profiles by Richard J Caruana.
Models
The first ten pages are taken up by superb builds of the Condor 1:72 kit by Libor Jekl and the 1:48 GWH kit by Andy Evans, including a page of a possible 1:32 kit coming from HpH, asll being well.
Appendices
Three pages of kits, bits and reference for the inspired modeller.

As already mentioned, this book will be tremendous use to anyone planning on building a 189, as the technical section especially is simply crammed with pictures, drawings and diagrams that should give you pretty much everything that's missing from the kit, as well as in inkling as to what is hiding away in the less seen areas of the aircraft, which tempts one to start opening panels.

Conclusion
Presentation is top-notch as usual, and the detail that has been sourced for this title is excellent, and even extends to the thwarted "Cylonesque" ground-attack variant, and the less seen trainers with their reduced glazing set. Until I opened this book I had no idea there was even a sea-plane proposed with a pair of floats suspended under the booms instead of the landing gear. Sadly, the prototype was never completed, but there's always the ski equipped variant from GWH if you wanted to model something out of the ordinary without Whiffery.

It's a great book to dip into and skip through the pages reading the copious captions, and will be of great use if you're planning on improving or upgrading your model of any scale.

Very highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of