This is a true “walk around” publication as many close up photos of the aircraft and its components are shown, including the cockpit, landing gear, engine, and the heart of the system the GAU-8 30mm Gatling gun. Only one color profile is provided that of the aircraft hit by an Iraqi SAM over Baghdad on April 8, 2003.

The Introduction is thorough in that it does give interesting, although brief, facts about the aircraft. However, for a “profile” of an aircraft that has been in service since 1976 (original prototyping taking place in 1967), the publication is very narrow in scope. As stated, only one color profile is given of an aircraft in a very recent deployment scheme (to their credit decals are also included), there have been many different color schemes tried out on this aircraft. Some schemes used in the “forward deployment” period in Europe, in the early 80’s, were quite interesting.

Though the photos are of high quality, and do show detail of components, I would give this publication a pass.

Conclusion

In fairness, if I were going to build one A-10 aircraft model, just to say “yes I have an A-10 in my collection”, and not really interested in knowing much about the plane or its history, this book would suffice. This does not however fit in with the reason why or how I personally choose to build models.