The Suez Crisis – Empire’s End

Valiant Wings Publishing
Airframe Extra No.7

Reviewed by Brad Fallen

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This seventh title in Valiant Wings’ Airframe Extra series focuses on the 1956 intervention by Britain, France and Israel against Egypt’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal.  The intervention was militarily successful but politically disastrous, particularly for Britain which was forced to recognise its postwar loss of influence compared to the United States and the USSR.

In terms of aviation, Suez saw the continued ascendency of jet power that had begun in World War II and Korea. The skies were owned by first and second-generation jets such as Meteors, Ouragans and F-84s, although piston-engined Mustangs, Corsairs and even B-17s continued to provide valuable service.  This variety of aircraft, finished in a diverse range of camouflage and markings, includes plenty of interesting modelling subjects – as this book demonstrates.

The Suez Crisis is laid out in typical fashion for the series, beginning with a day-by-day history of the intervention by Steve A. Evans.  Steve’s informative and dry writing style, which will be well known to anyone who’s read his kit build articles, is put to good use here.  In a few short pages, the chapter provides all the facts and context you need to have a good basic understanding of what happened during the crisis.

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Then it’s on to the aircraft, starting with six pages of RAF profiles including Hunters, Meteors, Whirlwinds, Venoms, Canberras, Hastings, Shackletons, Valiants, and Valettas.  There are two other profile sections in the book:  the first features Fleet Air Arm (including Sea Hawks, Avengers, Skyraiders, Sea Venoms and Wyverns), and the second French and Israeli machines (Corsairs, Ouragans, F-84s and RF-84s, and a B-17).  A comparable section of Egyptian aircraft profiles would have been welcome.

Interspersed between the profiles are seven kit builds.  Libor Jekl makes short work of three 1/72 kits:  the Xtrakits Meteor F.Mk 8, the HobbyBoss Sea Hawk FGA Mk 6, and the Kovozavody Prostejov Piper J-3 Cub.  Back at his modelling bench, Steve Evans builds the new Tan Model 1/48 RF-84F Thunderflash, the Trumpeter 1/72 Il-28 Beagle and Hasegawa’s 1/48 P-51D, before gamely concluding with Classic Airframes’ 1/48 Meteor NF Mk11/13.

The builds are all well executed, photographed and written up, and will be useful guides for anyone tackling these kits – particularly the Classic Airframes Meteor and Trumpeter’s Beagle, which both presented Steve with a number of challenges.

Rounding out the modelling information is a one-page colour reference guide, which lists the main aircraft colours used by the RAF, FAA, France and Israel and cross-references these with popular model paint equivalents.

I like the format that is used for these Airframe Extra titles.  By limiting contents to history, profiles and builds, Valiant Wings is able to maintain the reader’s interest and convey a large amount of information in comparatively few pages.  The builds are of high quality, and continue the practice I noticed in the first Airframe Extra book I read – on the air war over Europe in 1944-45 – of including kits that are older, challenging and in some cases both!

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2017 by Brad Fallen
This Page Created on 11 August, 2017
Last updated 11 August, 2017

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