Thank you to the great folks at Kitty Hawk Models for bringing a welcome new large-scale kit to U. S. Navy propeller aficionados. Kitty Hawk subjects are starting to fill out my collection more and more! Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us kits to review.

This new release from Kitty Hawk fills a long-standing gap in 1:32 scale early USN aircraft. The Kingfisher is represented in the scale modeling world by very old but generally still available smaller scale 1:48 and 1:72 kits, which can be upgraded and corrected by a wide variety of after-market components. However, I am unaware of any injection-molded Kingfisher kits in 1:32 scale, let alone a modern release. Bravo Kitty Hawk!

This review is a pre-build review or scrimmage, where I am reporting on construction planning, kit option choices, evaluation of the kit, and preliminary observations. A full build will follow soon!

Colin Owers has generated a new look at the Sopwith 2F.1 Ship’s Camel. Jack Bruce’s Datafile number 6 was issued in 1987 and has been long out of print, so it is about time that Albatros revisited Sopwith’s shipboard Camel. The cover features a Paul Monteagle painting of Sopwith 2F.1 N6602 flying over HMS Furious during take-off and landing trials in April 1918. Ronny Bar contributes seven large color side profiles, including N6818, an eye-catching red and white sun-burst paint job as flown by Major W.G. Moore. I counted 64 black and white photos and three tables.

Mick Davis grabs the pullout centerfold with 1/48 general arrangement line drawings of the Sopwith 2F.1 Camel. For those of you that still dabble in that odd 1/72 scale, Mick Davis also provides you the same drawings on a single page. The bonus is three pages of 1/32 detail and structural general arrangement drawings.

Sections include:

Ever heard of an Eduard Overtree kit? You would not be alone. Eduard offers overtree kits occasionally, for a very limited time and ONLY through the Eduard website. They contain only the plastic parts. No box art, no instructions, no decals, no masks and no photo etch. No nothing, just plastic. Why do this? To keep the costs down. Eduard also offers the modeler the parts that you may want to add separately. If you have aftermarket decals then you aren’t paying extra for the decals. I personally like to use the Zoom sets to spruce up the instrument panel and some other odds and ends, like seatbelts. This is what I consider an essential set. Everything else is nice. The instructions are available for download online in the Profipac or the Weekend Edition releases. Maybe you own the Dual Combo pack and want to build more than one of the marking options, this is an inexpensive way to do that.

British aircraft have hard edged fairly standard paint schemes. This can be a blessing and a boon for modelers. Well it has been made infinitely easier thanks to Eduard.

Packaged in a ziplock bag, Eduard provides you two sheets of Kabuki tape masks which I think is the best masking medium out there. If you aren’t familiar with Kabuki tape, it is the same stuff that Tamiya tape is made of. You can tell if it is properly down because it is slightly see through. The one sheet has the fuselage halves on it and the other has the wings, tail and some extra strips. They are all easy to apply and they fit perfectly.

I’ve used these types of masks from Eduard on some Spitfire kits and they work perfectly. This makes the arduous task of masking simple and easy. If you are careful when you remove them they can be used multiple times.

A perfect addition to your diorama or display base is this Aires Aerobonus figure. This Soviet Pilot figure is designed to be used with any Cold War aircraft (La-9, La-11, La-15, La-250, Yak-15, Yak-23, MiG-9, MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, MiG-21, Su-7, Su-9, Su-11, Su-13, etc.). Aires Aerobonus provides you with a resin figure with separate arms and head on one pour stub with side bars to protect the figure. Of note is the re-sealable packaging that Quickboost uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. The supplied instructions provide color drawings for painting.