Paul R. Brown
Reviews By Author
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MiGs in the Middle East Volume 2: Soviet-Designed Combat Aircraft in Egypt and Syria 1963-1967Published:
The book is volume 37 of Helion & Company’s Middle East@War series. While Volume 1 examined the delivery and use of Soviet designed combat aircraft in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, Volume 2 is limited to just Egypt and Syria and covers the time period from mid-1963 through mid-1967, ending right before the 1967 war. The book includes over one hundred black and white photographs, one page of color photographs and six pages of color profiles depicting the aircraft of the two air forces and the flight gear typically worn by flight crews during this period, along with maps and order of battle charts. Unfortunately, the quality of most of the photographs are very good, but as in Volume 1, some of them are blurry or fuzzy, which is not surprising given their age. I was pleased to see that only… more |
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MiG-17 Gun BarrelsPublished:
This set provides replacement gun fairings and barrels for the new Airfix MiG-17F kit. The set consists of three gun fairings and three barrels to replace the kit guns. The fairings are on-for-one replacements for the kit fairings, but the barrels are a huge improvement over the kit barrels as the business end of each barrel is hollowed out rather than solid, so they really look like gun barrels. Installation of the fairings is exactly the same as for the kit parts, other than having to be attached with superglue. As MiG-17 kits are notorious tail sitters, I had packed as much weight as I could in the cavity between the intake walls and in front of the cockpit tub, but I had also ended up putting some under the cockpit. Unfortunately, some of this weight partially blocked the… more |
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MiG-17 Fresco Landing GearPublished:
This set provides white metal replacements for Airfix’s new MiG-17F kit. The set consists of five parts, a new nose strut with integral wheel, two main gear struts and two retraction/extension actuators and are one-for-one replacements for the kit parts. The parts are well cast with just a minor casting seam to be cleaned up. I then polished each part with a wire wheel in my Dremel to smooth out the cast texture and get the parts ready for painting. As the landing gear on the aircraft I am modeling was unpainted, I sprayed the struts with Testors aluminum and then painted the tire Tamiya NATO black. I highlighted the retracting sections of the retraction/extension actuators with Testor’s chrome silver. As the parts are cast copies of the kit parts, they fit… more |
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Extra EA-300L (4-blade Propeller)Published:
The Extra EA-300L is a two seat aerobatic aircraft designed and built in Germany and flown in many countries around the world. This kit is a revised version of the EA-300L kit previously issued by Brengun and includes a resin four bladed propeller and new decals for two aircraft registered in England, one from Germany and one from Austria. While the kit is a limited production kit with no locating pins on the parts, the fit is exceptionally good and Tamiya Extra Thin Cement works well with the plastic. The parts are on two sprues, but as there are no part numbers on the sprues, Brengun provides a parts diagram to help you locate the parts. I used a razor saw to remove parts from the sprues as needed and then cleaned up the attachment points with sanding sticks or sandpaper. All… more |
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AV-8B Wheels (Hasegawa)Published:
This set provides an upgrade for Hasegawa’s AV-8B Harrier II kit and provides a new nose gear fork assembly and trailing gear door, new tires all the way around and photoetch replacements for the scissor links on the outriggers and the aft main gear. The resin parts are very well cast with nice tread patterns on all of the wheels along with raised lettering on each tire. The tires are also all weighted to simulate the weight of the aircraft. The photoetch scissor links are also crisply done and easily folded to the proper orientation. I started with modifying the nose gear fork. After removing the lower section of the fork and the molded-on gear door, I drilled a small hole in the center of the remaining kit part. I then used larger and larger mini drills to enlarge… more |
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AV-8B Harrier CockpitPublished:
This set provides an upgrade for Hasegawa’s AV-8B Harrier II kit and provides a complete overhaul of the kit cockpit and along with a number of photo-etch details for the exterior of the aircraft. The cockpit parts include photo-etch rudder pedals, sidewalls, replacement tops for both the left and right-side consoles, two different main instrument panels, a photo-etch HUD bracket with clear film for the reflecting glass, and photo-etch harnesses and other upgrades to the ejection seat. The two instrument panels give you the option to model either an early AV-8B, such as those that saw combat in Desert Storm, or an AV-8B Night Attack Harrier or AV-8B+. The early panel has a single multifunction display, while the Night Attack Harrier and the AV-8B+ panel has two multifunction… more |
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Lockheed Martin F-104 Starfighter A/CPublished:
This is a re-release of the F-104 A/C kit originally released by Italeri back in 2014. The kit includes six sprues of grey plastic, one clear sprue, a photo-etch sheet and two large decal sheets. In examining the sprues, it is clear that some of them are common to Italeri’s 1/32 F-104G as the sprues include the later zero-zero ejection seat, AIM-9L Sidewinders, several pylons that are not used on the F-104A or C, as well as two styles of ventral fins and exhaust nozzles. The decals depict five F-104As and one F-104C, however two of the six aircraft (markings E and F) are repeats from the original 2014 issue. Unlike the previous release, all 6 of the aircraft depicted in this kit are in a natural metal finish with white upper wings. I build 1/72 aircraft almost exclusively, so this kit… more |
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Air Battles Over Hungary 1944-45Published:
As an avid reader of books regarding the various aerial campaigns of World War Two, when I saw the title of this book I realized that other that reading about The US Army Air Corps’ campaign against the Romanian oil fields I really did not know much about the air war that was fought between Germany and its allies against the Soviet Air Force in southeastern Europe. Given the title of the book, I was looking forward to stories of air combat between Russian Yaks and Laggs and German Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs, however, this book is actually more of a broad overview of the Russian campaign to drive the Germans from Hungary, particularly the city of Budapest. The book is organized into nine chapters, each of which discusses a different phase of the battle for Hungary. Each… more |
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SAAB Viggen Landing Gear (Tarangus/Special Hobby)Published:
This set is designed to provide replacement parts for the landing gear on the Tarangus/Special Hobby SAAB Viggen kits. The set includes replacement parts for the nose gear and both main gear assemblies and as with most of SAC’s landing gear sets, the metal parts are intended to be one-for-one replacements for the kit parts. The nose strut assembly includes the gear strut, the scissor link and the retraction/extension actuator. The parts in my set were very well cast and after just a little clean-up of the casting seam where the casting plugs attach, the parts will be ready to go. The main gear sets each include the gear strut, both parts of the retraction/extension strut and the smaller strut/actuator that attaches to the rear base of the main gear struts.… more |
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Tu-22 Blinder Landing Gear (Trumpeter)Published:
This set is designed to provide replacement parts for Trumpeter’s Tu-22 Blinder kit. As with most of SAC’s landing gear sets, the metal parts are intended to be one-for-one replacements for the kit parts. The set includes replacement parts for the nose gear and both main gear strut assemblies and some of the associated actuators. However, it appears that a couple of parts are missing as the nose strut has two small parts to be fitted to the sides of the strut (parts E1 and E2) that are identical, but there is only one of them provided in the SAC set. In addition, the kit includes a small secondary retraction arm (part E3) which attaches to the triangular retraction arm, but this actuator is not included in the SAC set. As noted in the photos, my nose strut was slightly bent to… more |