Messerschmitt Me 262 Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Valiant Wings relives its roots with a revision of its very first “Airframe & Miniature” title – The Messerschmitt Me 262: A Complete Guide To The Luftwaffe’s First Jet Fighter.

Here, Valiant Wings set the template for its popular, pioneering range.

If Internet sources are correct, this revision nearly doubles the original imprint’s page count. It also updates Me 262 new-kit releases since 2010. It inserts pull-out 1:48-scale plans not available in the first edition. And it adds modeling commentary to “building a collection” isometrics in Chapter 8.

The last proved very convenient – and very welcome.

The first five chapters – about half the book – survey Me 262 prototypes, pre-production machines, production models, and camouflage & markings notes.

That’s the “airframe” part.

Text then turns meaty for modelers in subsequent “miniature” sections:

• a cross-section of recent Me 262 kits,
• step-by-step kit builds by Libor Jekl and Steve A. Evans,
• variant notes with 3D isometrics, and
• nose-to-tail details – close-up shots and tech-manual excerpts.

Four exhaustive appendices – known kits, accessories, decals, and references – neatly wrap things up. And like all “Airframe & Miniature” installments, it sports hundreds of illustrations – photos, drawings, color art, and archival images.

Sure, I have some questions. The translation of “Heimatschutzer”, for instance. That strange acute accent over the “a” in “Hakenkreuz”. And is any book really “complete”? Yada-yada.

Quibbles all.

Point is, I'm just thankful finally to have a copy of this landmark, one-volume, Me 262 library. If you missed it the first time around, act now – before it goes scarce again!

Roundly recommended!

My sincere thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for this review copy.