Wing Leader

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With this latest volume, we welcome Neil Robinson to our team of authors. Neil will be well known to most of you, having spent most of his career working in aviation publishing, and we look forward to working with him on more titles in the future. Red Kite are delighted to present a major new landmark series of books on the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain Combat Archive Series forms the most comprehensive account ever of The Few’s gallant efforts. Focusing solely on RAF Fighter Command’s clashes with the Luftwaffe, the series covers every combat that took place on every day of the Battle of Britain. Using contemporary accounts such as combat reports, rarely seen squadron intelligence summaries and the newly released casualty reports, the author and his team of experts have broken down each day into its individual combats and assembled the claims, losses and first-hand accounts into a highly accessible format. These combats are illustrated with specially designed maps showing the amount of aircraft involved, the area that the engagement took place and the location of where the casualties came to earth. Each combat and casualty report is illustrated with a photo of the pilot wherever possible.The series will run to around 18 Volumes. Volume One covers 10 July to 22 July 1940 and contains: This series is unique in that it will be able to provide large format ORIGINAL photos up to full A4 landscape format width, which is at least 50% larger than any standard book can deliver. Combined with the specialist knowledge of a team of historians and contributors, each book should provide unbeatable and accurate references for any modelling or painting project. Volume Fourteen covers 16-23 September, a period when the weather took a turn for the worse and limited operations on both sides. Despite this, there are several important and rarely covered events such as the massacre of KG77’s Ju88s on it’s first operation with the new type on 18 September. A new fighter capable of matching the performance of the FW190 was needed – urgently. The planned successors to the Spitfire Mk V were the Mk VII and Mk VIII, but they would take far too long to become operational. Fortunately, Rolls-Royce had experimented with fitting a Merlin 60 engine in their test-bed Spitfire in September 1941 and the increase in performance over the Mk V was significant. The Air Ministry took the decision to marry the tried-and-tested Mk V airframe with the new Merlin to bypass the delays in perfecting a new airframe and get a better Spitfire operational as soon as possible. The Spitfire Mk IX entered service nine months later, in June 1942 and went on to become, in the eyes of many pilots, the best of the breed.

As with all the books in this series, we’ve enhanced the photos to pull out the shadow detail and have added arrows and letters to identify points of interest. Growing up in the late 1950s/early 1960s, Neil Robinson had an interest in aeroplanes from an early age, which expressed itself by him spending most of his paper round money buying aviation magazines such as ‘Flying Review’ and ‘Aircraft Illustrated’ and Airfix and Frog kits. Hanging onto every word of W R ‘Bill’ Matthews’ ‘Model Talk’ in ‘Flying Review’ and Alan W Hall’s conversions in ‘Airfix Magazine’, he continued to have an interest in aeroplanes and model making throughout his teens and joined IPMS (UK) in 1969.The Nachtjagd Combat Archive is possibly the largest WWII aviation project ever published running to over 1.3 million words with over 1200 original photos, a remarkable 70% of which are previously unpublished. Red Kite are delighted to introduce a major new landmark series of books on the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain Combat Archive Series forms the most comprehensive account ever of The Few’s gallant efforts. Focusing solely on RAF Fighter Command’s clashes with the Luftwaffe, the series covers every combat that took place on every day of the Battle of Britain. Using contemporary accounts such as combat reports, rarely seen squadron intelligence summaries and the newly released casualty reports, the author and his team of experts have broken down each day into its individual combats and assembled the claims, losses and first-hand accounts into a highly accessible format. These combats are illustrated with specially designed maps showing the amount of aircraft involved, the area that the engagement took place and the location of where the casualties came to earth. Each combat and casualty report is illustrated with a photo of the pilot wherever possible. Specially commissioned combat scenes by Piotr Forkasiewicz, one of the world’s leading digital aviation artists.

When Spitfire Mk V pilots first met the FW190s of JG26 in August 1941, it immediately became apparent their old Spitfires were completely outclassed by the Luftwaffe’s new fighter. Losses rose rapidly as more Spitfires fell to the guns of the FW190 pilots until, on 13 November 1941, all but essential fighter operations over Europe were halted. Then in late 1998, he took over editorship of ‘Scale Aircraft Modelling’ from the (then) owner, Alan W Hall, during which time he also introduced and edited a new range of enthusiast titles for Guideline Publications – the ‘Camouflage & Markings’ and ‘Combat Colours’ ranges of books. When we suggested having a go at the Spitfire V for his first book, I don’t think either of us quite grasped what a huge challenge that would be. Produced in greater numbers than any other Mark of Spitfire, the Mk V was flown by countless squadrons and units, manned by dozens of nationalities in all theatres of war. Where to start?! For quite a few years, Simon Parry and Mark Postlethwaite have been building up a huge library of original WWII aviation photos, partly as a hobby but mainly to help provide photos for the books that they publish. With over 30,000 now in the collection, they realised that they had more than enough to produce a series of photo books on individual aircraft types and sub-types. They set out to make the series as ideally suited to modellers and artists as possible, so large photos, using A4 landscape format, and minimal text except for extended captions. Effectively their aim is to produce a 21st Century version of the Profile Publications series of books from the 1960s, using the latest technology to reproduce their wartime photos to the highest standard possible. The last volume (WPA 5) covered Mk I/III early production batches up to 1943 (L7527 to JB748), whereas this one covers Mk I/IIIs from 1943 to the end of the war (HK535 to SW279). We’ve avoided post-war Lancs and other Mks as they will appear in a future volume. Also set aside for a future volume is a more in-depth look into the interior of the Lancaster and the various equipment that was carried.

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After the very positive reaction to our first Lancaster book in this series, we’re delighted to continue our RAF Bomber Command theme with this, the first of two books on the Short Stirling. For us, there was only ever one author ‘in the frame’ for this one and we’re delighted to say that Jonathan Falconer accepted the challenge and has produced a stunning tribute to this leviathan of the skies. In this book, renowned Beaufighter expert Terry Higgins and modelling legend Neil Robinson share their deep knowledge of the subject and identify the various modifications, paint schemes and upgrades that were applied to the Beau during this period. It was a very complicated task which took them over a year to complete. After five years with SAM Publications he temporarily re-joined The Aviation Workshop, in April 2010, as Book Production Editor for their range of ‘On Target’ books, before joining forces with a local printer and starting the AIRfile range of camouflage and markings books. After devoting the first four volumes in this series to Battle of Britain subjects, we turned our attention to another icon of British aviation, the Avro Lancaster. The problem with the Lanc was always going to be how to break it down into manageable sizes. We considered chronologically but it didn’t quite tell the story as we wanted, so in the end we went for a layout by production batches and therefore serial numbers. This has thrown up some interesting details along the way and we can guarantee that even the biggest Lancaster fans will learn some new facts from this book. Part One therefore covers serial numbers L7527 to JB748 which chronologically is roughly 1941 to the end of 1943. Part two features later serials and Part three covers the MkII and other special Lancaster types like the B1 Special and the Type 464 (Provisioning) ‘Dambuster version. ” Having covered the wartime Mk.I and III in the previous two books, this third book completes the Lancaster’s wartime career* by looking at the other Mks that flew with RAF Bomber Command. These other Mks are the radial engined Mk.II, the Canadian built Mk.X, the experimental Mk.VI, the Dambusters’ Type 464 and the Grand Slam carrying B.I (Special). Produced in smaller numbers for various reasons, these Mks rarely get a lot of coverage in mainstream books so we’ve tried to do them justice in this volume.