The Messerschmitt Bf 109 Late Series Book Review

By David L. Veres

Review

You know the old parlor game: "If you could take only one book on (insert topic here) to a desert isle, what would it be?"

Well, if the subject is late-model Bf 109s, pack this terrific tome with your sunscreen.

That's because The Messerschmitt Bf 109: Late Series shoehorns just about every nuance on the "F to K including the Z Series" – arguably World War II's most studied and debated fighter – into just 240 amazingly compact, lavishly illustrated, wholly informative pages.

Eleventh in Valiant Wings' acclaimed "Airframe & Miniature" range, the handy handbook spans eight chunky chapters. The first four cover "airframe" subjects:

• Evolution – Bf 109F Series
• Evolution – Bf 109G Series
• Evolution – Bf 109H, K and Z Series
• Camouflage and Markings and Colour Profiles

And the last four traverse "miniature" matters:

• Bf 109F to G-series Kits
• Building a Selection
• Building a Collection
• In Detail: The Bf 109F to K

As with all Valiant Wings efforts, details dominate. That last "miniature" segment, for instance, spans nearly 60 pithy pages of cockpit, fuselage, cowling, wing, empennage, and flight-control miniatuae – among many other nits and picks.

To put things into perspective, that's 25% of the book – all aimed helping you sex late Messerschmitt details.

Like all Valiant Wings efforts, an amazing array of eye candy marinates text.

The sumptuous study sports hundreds of B&W & color photos, drawings, isometric views, and tech-manual excerpts. Providing plenty of project inspiration, Richard J. Caruana's superb artwork surveys the sumptuous sweep of late-model 109 schemes. And several kit builds will certainly stir your modeling muse.

Valiant Wings has forged an excellent reputation for terrific titles like this. Get this book.

Robustly recommended!

My sincere thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for this review copy.