Not 100% for this site, but for those who cut their teeth on Airfix 'planes, here's a blast from the past .

Just received my CD of all 262 Profile aircraft issues

For c£10 you can't go far wrong and it makes up the full set to add to my dozen or so Axis issues from the 1960s.


They cover a wide and rather eclectic range of aircraft, from No1's SE5A to No262's P47n Thunderbird... and much in between. Nos 1-205 are from the old red cover series whilst 206 onwards are the later blue series. There's not much difference although I get the impression that the later series didn't always have as many colour spreads as the earlier ones (the plane-candy that many of us bought them for).

I've put a selection of screenshots below which shows that quality varies quite a lot (not always with age, No1 is amongst the best) and that some are pristine and others a bit lacking in contrast and definition (the worst so far is the Ki45 whose scans are very low quality). Some are clearly scanned from the originals and others from the bound volumes that Profile also produced. A few seem to have been scanned at different scales meaning that page sizes vary (see JU88 below)

SE5 (No1) to give you a flavour:


A selection.. including the worst I've found so far:


(sorry if the selection reflect my interest in WW2 Axis aircraft )

So, not perfect scans... but for £10 well worth it.


The same publisher (The Classic Archives) do a very wide range of old magazine/special interest CDs. (note the AFV and Meccano Mags )

Used to love these when building scale (flying) models If fact I've still got a bunch of the bound volumes on one of the dusty shelves at the back of the room . . .

Cheers
Paul

I've got dozens, nay hundreds of these. In most cases the text was/is pretty informative. Can't say the same for the artwork which ranges from high quality to indifferent. However, that said, they do reflect where we were with aircraft reference back then. Nowadays reference-wise there is so much superb stuff available, but kit manufacturers still get it wrong sometimes, and then there are the rivet counters who will dispute everything. The late Bob Jones, sometime editor of Scale Models said to me once "if it looks right to you, then go with it". I've always remembered that.

They just need to do the same with Ospreys next - boy would that free up some space on my bookshelves!

Phil