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Ace Publications Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle By Clarence Wentzel #11478 |
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The Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle was the first jet
bomber to enter service with the Soviet air force. This tactical day
bomber was Russia's equivalent to the British Canberra. It first flew on
August 8, 1948, and entered service with bomber squadrons in 1950 and
remained in production for many years. It was adapted to fulfil a
variety of roles and was exported to many countries. It still
remains in operation in Romania and the People’s Republic of China. This thirty-eight page book is number 13 of the “Pod Lupa” Series from Ace. It is a great reference book for the modeler but is somewhat frustrating for aviation enthusiasts who do not speak Polish or have a means of translating Polish. The book contains a great number of photos and drawings of various versions of the Il-28 Beagle. These include twenty-nine color photos, seven color profiles and four color detail drawings. A very good six-view drawing is provided for the Bomber version and profile drawings plus a couple of front views are provided for the other versions. Good reference. A number of the photos show the Il-28 in operation with the various Air Forces that used this versatile airplane but the majority of the photos are of the “walk-around” type and are taken of various Il-28 models on display in museums. As near as I can tell, these include an Il-28 bomber version at Poznan, an Il-28U operational trainer at Krakow, an Il-28R reconnaissance version at Krakow, an Il-28E ECM version at Witkowo and a Harbin H-5 Chinese version that is in operation with the Romanian Air Force. These walk-around photos combined with a number of drawings that appear to have been taken from some technical manuals will allow the modeler to add as much extra detail as he or she wishes. The color detail photos are a treasure trove but also can add a lot of questions for the dogmatic color follower. As an example, the two photos of the nose gear wheel well on page 17 show two vastly different interior colors, red brown on the Il-28R and Zinc chromate yellow on the Il-28U. Have fun modelers! The book is written in Polish with English sub-titles for the photos and drawings. This allows the modeler to use the book for adding details to his models but I had to resort to the Internet to provide the background information contained in the first paragraph. There is a whole page devoted to a discussion of plastic kits of the Il-28. Unfortunately this is all in Polish and Babel fish does not include a translation from Polish. I suspect that they reported that the old Airfix kit is badly out of scale but I would like to know how well the Italeri and Bilek kits stack up. A table is included with the names, numbers and manufacturers of all of the Il-28 kits, accessories and decals. These provide a good starting point for the modeler wishing to add this historically significant aircraft to their collection. Additional information is readily available on the Internet and some new items have been added. See the Linden Hill site for some added decals. In spite of the frustration with this book, I recommend it completely as a reference for the modeler interested in this area. It provides a level of detail that should satisfy the most demanding modeler and yet the average modeler can use it to provide those few extra details to make the model more satisfying. A big thanks to the publisher for providing this review sample. It can be obtained from many Internet book sources including Air Connection where this book is currently on sale for $6.99. |
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