I take my hat off to Neil Robinson, editor of Scale Aircraft Modelling and now series editor for the Monograph title, when he took over SAM a while ago some people said he wouldn't be able to turn what was then a failing publication, into a success. Well the new Monograph is an excellent addition to the reference shelves and I recommend it without reservation. Neil, Paul and the rest of the team responsible have really done us proud with this one. Following Tamiyas latest release of the new Fairey Swordfish, reviewed elsewhere on this site, I thought it would be useful to take a closer look at one of the available references on this enigmatic bi-plane. Comprising 32 pages this book is very much a photo reference.
Every page contains a selection of well captioned black and white images illustrating the subject.
The first half of the book contains photos taken during manufacturers trials and under service conditions, the latter part of the book draws heavily on a specially commissioned set of photos of the sole surviving Swordfish currently maintained in flying condition by the RN Historic Flight based at RNAS Yeovilton. This is the real treat in the book, we are given plenty of close-up pictures of the RNAS aircraft and some from Ian Huntleys personal collection, all of the images will be useful to the modeller as they feature not only cockpit and engine detail shots but also a series of pictures taken while the aircraft was under attention in the workshops of Personal Plane Services in 1997, these pictures show the internal structure of the aircraft with various outer panels removed. A real feast for the superdetailers out there. The text of book was written by that bastion of Scale Models, Ray Rimmel and as such is informative, entertaining and very accurate. To finish there is a double page cutaway diagram of a Mk.