North American P-51D Mustang Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

AJ Press has released an interesting new series aimed at the modeler. This title is focused on the P-51D Mustang. The text is published in both Polish and English and the print quality is very nice.

What is different about this series verus other AJ Press titles? There is only seven pages of history including some black and white photos to illustrate the narrative. The next 10 pages focus on four-view diagrams to illustrate the production differences between different blocks of P-51D.

The next major section is a complete full-color photo walk around of the P-51D using several museum and nicely restored warbird examples. These excellent photos poke into the cockpit, into the wheel wells, under the cowling and even into the gun bays. The author uses excerpts from WW2 Mustang manuals to contrast the details against the photos.

There are quite a few full-color profiles of the P-51 in this title as well. The coverage concludes with a look at the available kits and detail sets for the Mustang in all of the popular scales.

What is a first (as far as I'm aware) for AJ Press is a one-up improvement over their rival - Kagero Press. This title has a nice large sheet of decals in 1/72, 1/48, 1/32, and 1/24! The single subject of this sheet is an RAF Mustang IV of 303 (Polish) Sqn, RF-P, KH865. While you'll need your own roundels, you can see from the image that a FULL set of maintenance stencils are included.

This title is a must-have for all aviation historians and modelers alike. You can find this title and many of the other titles from AJ Press at the Air Connection website ( www.airconnection.on.ca).

My sincere thanks to Air Connection for this review sample!