The de Havilland Mosquito Part 1 – Bomber and Photo Reconnaissance

Airframe & Miniature No.8
By Richard A. Franks.
ISBN: 978-0-9935345-1-5
Price around: £18.95 GBP; $25.05 USD; €22.58 Euros; $32.41 CDN

192 pages, high quality art paper, colour profiles and full build articles, black and white period photos, scale drawings for 1:48 scale, line drawings, kit listings, accessory listings – what else does a modeller need?

Our thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for supplying our review copy. Get this impressive reference book here at Valiant Wings Publishing

You’ll notice that we have reviewed several of the other titles in this series over the years and you may get a sense of deja vu? This is the second publication (I think) for the de Havilland Mosquito although now, the variants have been split into part 1 here, that features the Bomber and Photo Reconnaissance versions of this most famous aircraft with Part 2 I’m sure going to address the Fighter and FB variants.

This is an invaluable one-stop-shop for scale modellers and Valiant Wings Publishing has realised that modellers want exactly this, everything you pretty much need to build a model of the type on offer. The internet will turn up a lot for free but can take hours of looking and invariably has big gaps in what you actually want to know and that can be frustrating. SMN has been founded on similar principles of providing what you need all in one place – modelling should be fun and enjoyable and that’s where I hope we can help.

You can see here a quick list of what’s included:

• 40+ pages of technical information
• 20+ pages of walk-around images and technical diagrams
• 5+ pages of camouflage and markings
• 25+ pages of model builds and modelling information
• 200+ photographs including wartime images
• Colour side views and four-views by Richard J. Caruana
• 3D isometric views of all bomber and PR variants by Wojciech Sankowski
• Specially commissioned extensive full kit builds by Libor Jekl and Steve A. Evans of the 1:72nd scale Tamiya B Mk IV plus another converted to B Mk XVI, 1:48th scale Airfix PR Mk XVI and 1:32nd scale HK Models B Mk IV Series II kits
• Specially commissioned front cover artwork by Jerry Boucher
• A full set of fold-out 1:48th scale plans.

The builds by Libor J. and Steve E. are impressive and show what can be achieved using a number of the kits and accessories available.

The walk around section offers plenty of insight into the Mosquito with good access to the real surviving aircraft and put with line drawings and the excellent colour profiles this book is a ‘must purchase’ for anyone interested in modelling this most famous of de Havilland aircraft.

Highly recommended.
Geoff C.

Here are a few more images showing the great content on offer.