This is not a highly-detailed kit, but can be an entertaining build for both less experienced and more advanced modelers. Less experienced modelers will enjoy the ease of assembly, and can build the kit without painting. More advanced modelers looking for construction equipment will find the kit to be an opportunity for some extreme weathering.

Background

This is the second kit Hasegawa has produced based on the Hitachi tracked excavator. The first was the Double Arm Working Machine Astaco Neo released in 2015 and updated in 2017 with new parts. This new Hitachi Zaxis kit retains the grasping claw from the Double Arm kit, but adds an excavator bucket and dozer blade as additional options.

The Zaxis 135US-6 excavator is used by contractors needing a tight tail-swing radius to work in confined areas around obstacles. The excavator is equipped with an Isuzu engine.

Guns and pitot probes on most plastic model aircraft leave a lot to be desired. There is often a mold seam down the center of the guns or pitot probe. Another set of problems are that the same parts, once cleaned up, are usually oval shaped in diameter, and the guns do not have that proper “hollowed” look of a real gun barrel. In some scales, such as 1/72, it would be difficult if not impossible to drill out these plastic gun barrels and pitot tubes.

Master Model has solved this problem with an aftermarket kit for the A-1 Skyraider. This kit consists of five metal parts, four gun barrels with flash hiders and a pitot probe to replace the kit’s pitot probe. Each gun barrel is realistically hollow on the inside, with the thickness of the barrel in scale with the model. Master Model’s parts are not unique to a specific A-1 kit, but are compatible with any 1/72 scale A-1 Skyraider kit, no matter which variant it is.

The first mockup of the F2H was actually completed before the end of WWII. A continuation of the FH-1 Phantom program, the F2H was a progressive step in the Navy’s effort to develop jet aircraft for carrier operation. The Banshee, as it was called, entered service in 1948, served in the Korean War, and wasn’t retired until 1961. It was also operational with the Canadian Navy until 1962.

Cross & Cockade has released their 2018 calendar and it is quite an edition to one’s Man Cave. As in past years, you are advised to order your copy now, and not wait. There may be a limited supply of these calendars and you do not want to miss out because you waited until the supply ran out.

According to Roger Tisdale of Cross & Cockade, the profits from the sale of the 2018 Cross and Cockade International Calendar are once again going to assist in the upkeep of the British Air Services Memorial at the St-Omer airfield in northern France”. This is a very worthy cause and deserving of your support. One can check out the St-Omer Memorial.

The Mi-24 Hind is one of the meanest attack helicopters on the battlefield. It is huge, ugly and spectacularly brutish. The Hind-D/E had a 12.7 YakB machine gun mounted in a turret under the nose. This gun was capable of carrying 1,470 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition and firing at a rate of 4,500 rounds a minute. This gun is a whole lot of whoop ass to go along with its brutish looks.

Master Model has started to release some helicopter armament systems in their turned metal barrel range. The third in the 1/35^th scale series is the gun and DUAS Probe for the Mi-24D/E.