Japanese Aviation News
Newsletter of the Japanese Special Interest Group, IPMS-UK
Volume 14, No. 1, January 2008

By Jim Schubert

The cover of this issue catches the eye with a brilliant, full-color reproduction of the covers of four WWII Japanese magazines. Having grown up during WWII I had no idea they produced such good-looking covers. All of the illustrations in this issue are in color and it is printed on heavy glossy paper stock of very high quality. Visually, the issue is stunning; lamentably, the content is very lightweight and not satisfying to me. There are only three very short notes about aviation news; a shallow paragraph about the Planes of Fame’s two-seat Zeke, a WWII aircraft production chart and a blurb about the Gremlin Task Force, a British unit that coordinated the operation of Japanese planes, post surrender, in French Indo-China. There are two kit build articles, four in-the-box kit reviews, one decal review, two publications reviews, a fantasy article and a mention of a Warpaint Website that does not give us the site’s address.

All things considered, this very good looking, well produced issue disappoints for its lack of substantive content especially in contrast with issues prior to 2007, which were full of good, solid, scholarly subject matter that you could dig into and learn from.

For more information contact the SIG Leader at:
gswenko@btopenworld.com