(December 2003) In 1940 the standard equipment of the French Air Force proved to be inferior to the fighters employed by other countries such as Germany and Britain. As a result the French were forced to purchase Curtiss Hawk 75As as a stopgap until their next generation of fighters were ready for large scale … More Loire 46 in 1/72 by Azur
(December 2003) In December 1915 the French Army began thinking about the potential of artillery mounted on a tracked, armoured chassis. When Renault was approached to design such a fighting vehicle the company was too busy with other things and had no experience with tracked vehicles so the first orders were given to the … More Renault FT Char Canon in 1/72 by RPM
(November 2003) During the early 1930s the multi-place twin-engined long range fighter concept became popular and the first of them was the Potez 63 series, developed in response to a French air ministry requirement of 1934. The prototype first flew on 25 April 1936 but it was damaged in a crash landing and the … More Potez 63.11 in 1/72 by Heller
(November 2003) In between the Mosquito and the Vampire the deHavilland company had spare design capacity that was turned to several projects, finally emerging as the DH-103 Hornet. It was a highly evolved piston engine fighter designed around two especially developed Merlin engines of low frontal area and calling upon the experience gained from … More DeHavilland Hornet F.1 in 1/72 by Special Hobby
(May 2003) When the United States Air Force was developing its long range strike force of nuclear bombers capable of reaching Russia it was able to reduce the fuel capacity of those bombers (and thus their size, cost and vulnerability) by using the new technique of air-to-air refuelling that had been pioneered in Britain. … More Boeing KC-135R in 1/72 by AMT
(October 2003) Following the invention of radar just before the beginning of World War II it became increasingly difficult for warplanes to reach their targets unannounced. By the end of the war radar was an important weapon in defence against air attacks and thereafter radar, in league with air defence weaponry, made defence against … More Lockheed F-117A in 1/72 by Academy
(August 2003) Development of the MiG Ye-152 began with the Ye-150, a technology demonstrator optimised as a short range interceptor with a single Turmansky R-15 engine of 10150kg thrust, possibly capable of intercepting the U-2s that the United States had begun flying over Russia. Only one Ye-150 was built and it flew for the … More MiG Ye-152A (Flipper) in 1/144 by Otaki
(July 2003) The X-15 was one of the series of purely experimental aircraft developed in the United States from the mid 1940s, starting with the Bell X-1 that was the first aircraft to break the sound barrier. By the early 1950s later X-craft were beginning to explore the speed range around mach 2 and … More North American X-15A-2 in 1/72 by Monogram
(June 2003) It would be no exaggeration to say that Boeing’s 747 revolutionised air transport. The huge airliner, designed to carry around 400 passengers, was more than double the capacity of the second generations of jet powered airliners such as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8. This high capacity offered new operational economies … More Boeing 747-200 in 1/144 by MPC
A.340-300 (June 2003) The origins of the Airbus A.340 lie in the decision made in 1970 to form Airbus Industrie, a multinational European effort to design and construct a high capacity twin-jet transport in competition to United States manufacturers and to serve the route characteristics of many European airlines. The original A.300 laid the … More Airbus A.330s and A.340s in 1/144 by Revell
