Legend of the Sky, Lockheed Constellation, from Excalibur to Starliner

By Dominique Breffort
Histore & Collections
ISBN 2-915239-62-2
$39.95

Reviewed by Norm Filer

Some of you may remember that some time back I raved about a book on the Vought Corsair by the French company Historie & Collections, well they have done another fantastic one on the Connie.

For those of you that picked up the Corsair book, you will find this one laid out pretty much the same. Lots of photos of the period, many in black and white, but well reproduced on very good quality slick paper. A lot of period advertising pages for various airlines, aircraft components and illustrations of almost everything that a modeler would want to super detail that Heller kit.

The real heart of this one is the side view profiles of what has to be just about every set of markings the Connie ever carried. There are three to a page and no less than 54 pages of them. That's 164 profiles for those of you (like me) that are math challenged. I did not count the military versus airliners, but as one would expect, it probably is about 60/40 in favor of the airlines. But the airliners are fabulous! Airlines you probably never seen before, and colors that almost make me want to dig for the Heller kit stash and build an......airliner??? (Please note that I said almost.) The profiles are very nicely done and are big enough at 10 3/4 inches long, to be able to actually see most of the smaller markings. Another nice touch is that each profile has the contemporary squadron/airline logo included as a scrap view. The text under the individual profiles tells you the complete history of that particular a/c.

For the spotters and bean counters there is a complete production list and of course the usual specifications and measurements for the various versions.

The downside is really quite minor. The text is somewhat stilted at times. The title page says it was translated from French, and reads rather awkwardly in places. Nowhere near difficult, just does not flow smoothly in places.

The Connie has to be one of the most attractive airplanes ever built, and this book does it up proud. I sure wish someone would do a better one in 1/72nd. I could build a dozen of these things!