Paul R. Brown
Reviews By Author
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Baggage CartsPublished:
This set provides 2 wire baggage carts presumably for 1/72 airliners or cargo aircraft (there is no history included with the kit) in a single fret of photo etch. The wire baskets are very well engineered, and with car fold up nicely to form a basket about ½ inch tall that is open on one side and at the top. The basket is attached to a base once you have folded over the edges of the base. There are also 4 photo-etched casters for each cart that require you to make two folds in each to represent 2 wheels on each caster and circular base for each caster. The completed casters are then superglued to the bottom of the base of the cart. The final touch is to add to photo-etched handles to each cart. I painted my carts aluminum to give me the maximum flexibility of how to use them, and I… more |
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L-39 Pitot TubesPublished:
This set is a beautiful pair of brass wing mounted pitot tubes for the Eduard L-39 Albatros kit. As shown in the photos, the kit pitots are very basic straight pieces of sprue with no taper or refinement. The Master Model replacements accurately capture the different diameters of the Albatros’pitot tubes, which range from fairly wide at the wing leading edge, then stepping down two sizes to a nice point at the tip. As the diameter of the end of the pitots that is inserted into the wing leading edge is almost the thick as the wing, I started with a fairly small drill bit to enlarge the mounting hole, using steadily larger bits as I made the hole large enough for the new parts to slide into the wing. Even then, the fit is tight as the wing is fairly thin. I test fit the new… more |
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L-39 MaskPublished:
This masking set is designed for Eduard’s L-39 Albatros kits and includes masks for all three sections of the canopy and for the main gear tires. As with all of Eduard’s mask sets, the fit of the masks is excellent as long as you take a little time to line them up. For the main canopy sections, the set provides masks for the outlines of the canopy frames. and the instructions tell you to fill in the rest with liquid mask. As there is a lot of extra material on the mask set outside of the pieces to be used, I instead cut small pieces from the extra tape and used it to fill in the rest of the canopies. On interesting inclusion are masks for the clear divider section that goes between the cockpits. I did not use it as I left this piece out until final construction of the kit. I’m… more |
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L-39ZA Albatros Weekend EditionPublished:
The L-39 Albatros is a single engine, twin seat jet trainer built in Czechoslovakia as a replacement for the L-29 Delfin trainer. Over 2,800 L-39s have been built, serving with over 30 air forces around the world. Recently a number of L-39s have been acquired by private parties or companies, leading to a wide array of interesting marking choices. Eduard’s kit has been around for a few years, but the kit was flash-free and I only had a couple of smaller parts where the molds did not quite line up right resulting in the two sides being slightly offset from each other. Fortunately, these were parts I was going to replace anyway such as the pitot tubes and the control sticks. Construction is very straight forward starting with the cockpit. Eduard gives you a nice set of… more |
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L-39ZA Weekend Edition S.A. PhotoetchPublished:
The L-39 is a Czech built jet trainer that has served with many air forces around the world as both a trainer and as a light attack aircraft and had recently become available for civil ownership as well. Eduard recently released its 1/72 scale Albatros in a weekend edition, which was of course followed by a photo-etch set for the kit. This set is for the most part a pre-painted self-adhesive set designed to upgrade and improve the cockpit, ejection seats and selected external areas of the jet, primarily the gun pod seen on most military versions of the aircraft. As expected construction starts in the cockpit where you are instructed to remove the existing molded on details from all of the side consoles and both instrument panels. Once smooth, these are replaced… more |
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F-16C Florida MakosPublished:
In 2014, the 482 Fighter Wing painted up one of its F-16C’s to commemorate its 25th anniversary. The jet was decorated with a mako shark motif including a shark mouth on the intake, a shark head on the forward fuselage and a shark fin on the vertical tail. The motif was created by modifying the standard F-16 scheme to incorporate the shark design. Caracal Decals has recreated these markings on sheet 72033 allowing us to depict this unique aircraft. The sheet includes a full set of markings for the jet including the shark fin for the vertical tail, the pectoral fins for the ventral fins and the stylized shark head for the forward fuselage along with the serial numbers, tail codes and the Florida Makos legend on the tail, as well as the standard inflight refueling markings,… more |
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L-39 Seatbelts - Super FabricPublished:
Eduard’s newest line of accessories is fabric aircraft seatbelts and harnesses. This set includes two sets of ejection seat harnesses for Eduard’s L-39 Albatross trainer kit. There are 3 parts to each harness set, a set of shoulder straps and two lap belts. As the kit seat is pretty vanilla, so the addition of the fabric harnesses greatly improves the look of the seat. Installation of the harnesses is very easy, however, as the harnesses are made out of an elastic type of material, so care must be taken in removing them from the backing paper or they will stretch a bit. I used the tip of new Exacto blade to lift a corner of each piece and then peeled them off the backing sheet with tweezers. As the harnesses are not metal, the instructions emphasize not to use superglue when… more |
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MQ-9 "Return of the Reaper"Published:
This is the second sheet printed by Caracal covering the operators of the MQ-9 Reaper UAV. The sheet includes markings for four U.S. Air Force Reapers, and one each from the RAF, the French Air Force, the Italian Air Force, and a civilian version operated by NASA. I liked the French Air Force markings, but as their Reapers are unarmed, and I wanted to load up mine, I opted instead for the RAF Reaper. While the Reaper is a relatively large UAV, there are not a lot of decals to be applied, regardless of which one you choose to model. The set includes enough of the stencils to decal two Reapers from the sheet, which is good as the Skunkworks kit is a double kit. The decal sheet includes instructions on the colors to paint the Reaper, and to my surprise, unlike the MQ-1… more |
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AGM-88B HARMPublished:
The AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) was developed to replace the AGM-45 Shrike and the AGM-78 Standard ARM. Unlike the Shrike and the Standard ARM, the HARM was designed from the outset as a SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) weapon, not an adaption of an existing weapon. The HARM system includes the missile, the LAU-118 launcher and HARM specific avionics in the launch aircraft. HARM has the ability to detect, acquire and select a radiating threat and once launched operates in a “fire and forget” autonomous capacity, freeing the launch aircraft to maneuver or to attack another target. The HARM proved its lethality during operations over Iraq during both Desert Storm and Desert Fox. It was used by the F-4G, A-6, A-7, Tornado and the EA-6B and is currently carried… more |
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GBU-10 Paveway IIPublished:
The GBU-10 weapons system consists of a Mk.84 2,000 lb. bomb coupled with a laser guidance system. The Paveway II guidance system replaced the Paveway I system beginning in the early 1970’s and features a simpler but more reliable seeker and pop-out wings in the tail fins to increase the bomb’s performance. Like the earlier Paveway I set, this set includes 2 bombs molded complete with the rear fin assembly, 2 sets of guidance canards and 2 sets of seeker heads, one with the protective cover and one without. Construction is very simply once the casting blocks are removed, as the guidance canards are keyed to ensure that they are properly aligned fore and aft and side to side on each bomb. The canards did not snap into place as well as they did on the Paveway I set I reviewed… more |