Reviewed by Rodger Kelly

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AJ Press is a Polish company. Established in 1991, the company publishes books that appeal to those with an interest in the historical aspect of military machines and weapons as well as the modeller who is looking for information to assist in creating their latest masterpiece.

Aircraft Monograph 19 covering the Vought F4U Corsair is one of the company's latest releases.

Being a product of a Polish company, I expected the tome to be in dual English/Polish text but I was pleasantly surprised to see that entire book was in the English language.

The F4U first flew in 1940 and was still flying in an operational role with the Air Forces of El Salvador and Honduras in 1978, a long, long time for a combat aircraft. Given all those years, many different versions of the F4U were produced. With this in mind, I was concerned that the book would have to cover a lot of ground and was worried that the publishers would adopt a "gloss over" approach. Happily, my fears were unfounded when my sample arrived from our fearless editor for review.

Comprising 264 pages, the coverage is very complete. The first 44 pages cover the development of the Corsair from the XF4U-1 through all of the variants up to and including the F4U-7 was used by the French Aéronavale.

The next 52 pages contain line drawings (by Jacek Jackiewicz) in 1/48 scale. Again, the treatment is complete from prototype to -7 with the coverage extended to include civilian air racers.

Camouflage and markings are covered by the next 40 pages. Included are machines operated by the USA (WWII and post-war including Korea), Britain, New Zealand, France, Argentina, El Salvador and Honduras. The section is complemented with 16 pages containing colour profiles (with some in plan view as well) to 1/32 scale by Zbigniew Kolacha for 21 different aircraft including those used by the US in WWII and Korea, New Zealand, and the UK.

The Corsair's service life is covered in the next 93 pages and again, it covers all users of the F4U.

The final pages are taken up with a technical description of the Corsair. Included in this section are great clear close-up pics of cockpits, instrument panels, wing folds, undercarriages and engines.

The photographs used to illustrate the text really are something else. Whilst many have been seen before, the vast majority are published for the first time. Again, I expected the preponderance of photographs would be of US machines but was pleasantly surprised to see that the coverage was even with a great deal of Fleet Air Arm machines and Royal New Zealand Air Force depicted.

The book is hardback, A4 in size, contains 346 black and white photos, 16 colour photos, 22 black and white drawings, 1 colour drawing, 53 sheets of line drawings to 1/48 scale, 18 colour plates to 1/32 scale.

A great reference book for the modeller and a great read for the enthusiast. AJ Press certainly have fulfilled their aim for their Monograph series with this one.

Recommended.

Thanks to Air Connection for the review sample.

Review Copyright © 2005 by Mick Evans
Page Created 09 September, 2005
Last updated 08 September, 2005

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