The I.A.R.80 and I.A.R.81 in Ultimate Detail Book Review

By David L. Veres

Review

What you say about a book that devotes three pages to headrests alone?  Three more to a safety harness?  And another five to gunsights?

You'd call it Vanator - Romanian Hunter – MMP's latest, available in North America from Casemate.  Spanning nearly 400 pages and reflecting two decades of "intense study and research", it's significantly subtitled, "The I.A.R.80 and I.A.R.81 in Ultimate Detail".

And that, as Cary Grant quipped to Katherine Hepburn, is a "masterpiece of understatement".  This massive, magnificent monograph proffers metaphorical mountains of minutiae.

How often should you grease I.A.R.80 aileron and flap hinges?  It's here.  The structure and disposition of wings and armament?  Yep.  Specifications for Romania's World War II-vintage "King Michael Cross"?  Definitely.  Hatch and panel locations for every version?  Those, too.  All instrument permutations – in full color?  Absolutely.

Even a guide to Romanian phonetics.  Now I can accurately pronounce the book's title!

An enlarged and corrected version of an earlier edition from SAM Publications, Vanator - Romanian Hunter sports hundreds of B&W photographs, 1:48-scale line drawings, isometrics and original tech-manual excerpts.  Dozens of color plates – profiles, insets, insignia and serials, all with reference photos – also spice MMP's superb study.

You name it, it's here.  Radu Brinzan's colossal compendium has easily established a quality benchmark for future aircraft monographs.  And it carries my highest recommendation.

Now let's hope some enterprising model manufacturer references MMP's terrific tome for a new, accurate and lavishly detailed family of I.A.R.80 kits!

With thanks to Casemate for the review copy.