Osprey books as reliable reference for aircraft modellers?s

[durb]

During the course of years I have bought several books of Osprey Publishing about the WW2 and pre-WW2 era aircraft and their pilots, because their books are usually of rather decent standard and offer interesting entries also to some less "mainstream" chapters of the history of airwar.

However I have found that sometimes there are errors or something which puts their credibility in some doubt when it comes to accurate info and correct colourplate profiles. Here some examples:

Spanish Republican Aces (Osprey Aircraft ot the Aces 106): the colourplate n:o 20 shows a Polikarpov I-16 type 10 "CM-157" referred as a personal mount of ltn. Eduardo Claudin on January 1938. However in the other Osprey book - Polikarpov I-15, I-16 and I-153 Aces (95) - we can read that first I-16 type 10 aircraft arrived to Spain in April 1938 (although curiosly Polikarpov Aces book has also a photo of I-16 type 10 in Spain which is dated to year 1937!).

Fokker D XXI Aces of World War 2 (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 112): the colourplate n:o 9 shows Finnish Fokker D XXI "FR-76" of March 1940 with a radio antenna and mast antennas, but Finnish references which I have about this tell that FR-76 never had a radio set with a mast and antenna wires (and this is also not supported by the few photos which I have seen of this particular aircraft).

The front cover of the French Aces of World War 2 (Osrpey Aircraf of the Aces 28) shows a air combat situation of sept. 1941 - very nice Hawk 75 which is also referred in the colourplate n:o 5 as belonging to autumn 1941 - however the book includes also the photo of the very same plane and the text below notes that its completely identical markings with those of colourplate 5 and frontcover are "full Vichy markings from the 1942 period".

There are couple of more similar cases which I have noted in other Osprey books. It tells about somewhat careless editing work if there is contradictory info about the same airplane in the book itself or if there is not even a crosschecking of info with the related other volumes of the same series (like there should be in the Osprey Aircraft of the Aces). Noboby of course is perfect, but some modellers make lots of work to make their models to be as precise and accurate in details as possible - in my opinion they should have compensation for their money in the books which are as well edited as possible and also crosschecked carefully before publication. Osprey could or should do it little better.