By John Wilkes
When I received this volume I was a little
surprised by the fact that WARPAINT books are up to volume 25. The subject of
this issue is as the title states the
Short Sunderland. This series comes in a softback form with a colour
photograph of the title aircraft on both covers along with a sample of the
artwork within. Every page is devoted to the subject and there is a very good
narrative on the "Flying Porcupine".
I spent just a couple of quiet hours sitting
and reading this publication from cover to cover. This was a very informative
and enjoyable read. I learnt a lot from the easy going text not just on the
technical side of the aircraft but also some of its many exploits. The text
takes you on a logical flow through the development and into service life,
this eventually moving onto the service during and after the war and on to
civilian service. As with a subject of this nature some of the photographs
have been seen before but there were many that were new to me, all have
informative and well thought out comments. There are even some rare colour
photographs within this volume that lend themselves well to reproduction.
Throughout the publication is page after page of side views in colour with
some text. This is the bread and butter of this series as they show the
"WARPAINT". These have been extremely well drawn with some of the
graffiti and Squadron badges being included as extras at the side of the page
enlarged for the audience. There are several charts within the pages that
detail such things as Squadrons that used this Aircraft and Serial /
production list.
In the middle of the volume is a detachable
set of 1/72 scale three view drawings. These are an essential part of any
modellers arsenal and for our scale they would need to be blown up on a copier
by 225% to get them to 1/32 scale. At the end of the book is a small section
titled "IN DETAIL", This consist of a series of close up photo's
with text to support. This is the only area of the series I can say could be
expanded for the modeller but as the title states "WARPAINT" we
cannot really moan about this. Just to top off the text is another small
table, this one showing all of the available, models of the books subject.
This also included some out of production models and projected kits. For the
1/32 scale fanatics there is mention of the I.D. kit that is now long out of
production.
This series goes from strength to strength,
with some very interesting subjects to boot, I would suggest that if you
intend to build a Sunderland then investing in this would be beneficial, Even
if you don't want to build one then it makes good reading and a good reference
source.
Recently WARPAINT books have gone on line
and now have a site at http://www.warpaint-books.com/
Review sample supplied by WARPAINT Books.
