My sample arrived in Eduard’s trademark clear poly envelope enclosing a piece of card stock, Eduard’s Knight standing at parade rest at the top right-hand corner. Inside I found one small photo-etch fret, one small textile fret and the instructions.
The G-5 was a Soviet motor torpedo boat built before and during World War II. Approximately 300 were built, of which 73 were lost during the war. Four were exported to the Spanish Republican Navy during the Spanish Civil War. Three were captured by the Finns during the ‘Winter War’, with two being used operationally against their former owners. Others were transferred to North Korea after the war.
This set consists of a cockpit tub, seats, instrument panels and glare shield for early and late instrument/radar panels, control stick, rudder pedals, a couple of boxes for the sides of the cockpit, headrests, and ancillary parts for the back deck of the cockpit. This set is designed for the Sword kits, though Pavla makes a set for the Matchbox version of the Skyknight, too. The parts are well cast in a medium grey resin. I found no bubbles or short molds in any of my parts. The instructions are two pages in the typical Pavla format of line drawings with color callouts and occasionally slightly vague locations.
This set is a replacement cockpit for the Italeri B-57B Canberra cockpit. It is well cast in a medium grey resin with no pinholes or short casts. Light flash was present on a couple of the parts but was easily removed. It should be noted that care must be exercised when removing the pour plug from the bottom of the cockpit. If you remove the plug completely up to the level of the bottom of the cockpit, the resulting floor of the cockpit is very thin. The set consists of the cockpit tub with detailed side consoles, side walls, and bulkheads, two pretty accurate, well detailed seats, front instrument panel, rear instrument panel relevant to the B-57B, throttle and gear levers (very fragile), a canopy strut jack, and a canopy support bow. This last piece has an extension that rests against the top center of the middle canopy bow. This extension is very fragile and prone to breakage.
Shamrock Miniatures out of Ireland is led by Daniel Batta and offers excellent figures in lines ranging from historical to fantasy. The subject of this review is Michael Collins -"The Big Fellow".
This book is written by one who was there. 1st Lt. Wolfgang Wollenweber flew for the Luftwaffe from 1943 till the surrender. Beginning his service in Me-110s and continuing on to Fw-190s, a brief training stint on Me-163s and finishing up in the He-162!
The book begins with his assignment to 13. Zerostorerstaffel/Jagdgerschwader 5 in Salmijarvi. Where on earth is Salimijarvi you ask? So did Lt. Wollenweber! Having expected an assignment to warm North Africa he soon found himself heading to above the Artic Circle along the Artic Ocean to fight the Russians. A desolate area with stark living conditions and never ending day or night depending on the time of year. An area with little to do outside of combat and most depressing on those who served there.
Recently, Airfix has upped its game with the release of several 1/72 scale aircraft kits with new tooling and featuring excellent detail. One such kit is their Hawker Typhoon Mk Ib. Despite Airfix’s excellent out-of-box detail, aftermarket detail manufacturers have tossed their hats into the ring to make an excellent kit even better.
Among them is Eduard with it’s set of photoetched landing flaps. Consisting of a single fret of photoetched brass, the set includes the movable surface areas as well as the stationary wing-side structural elements. Rib and rivet detail is crisp and delicate. Instructions are visual, succinct, and clearly presented.
Typical of Eduard products, fidelity of detail is exceptional. Some care and experience working with PE are recommended for this set, making it most suitable for intermediate and experience modelers. Highly recommend this set of flaps for builders wanting to further detail their Typhoons.
SAC continues its prolific output of metal gear designed to support our increasingly resin-filled, detail enhanced large models; thanks for passing on this set to IPMS USA and to our leadership in forwarding it out for review!
This SAC set contains two main gear struts, strut extension braces, torque links, a tail wheel fork, the tail wheel oleo extension strut, and the tail wheel mounting trunnion tube. These are all identical to the kit items, with the exception of having more strength.
AND, the main gear strut on the SAC parts is assembled with the mounting trunnions in place; all total, 3 Airfix kit items replaced per strut with one item. Unity = Strong!
Recently, Airfix has upped its game with the release of several 1/72 scale aircraft kits with new tooling and featuring excellent detail. One such kit is their Hawker Typhoon Mk Ib. Despite Airfix’s excellent out-of-box detail, aftermarket detail manufacturers have tossed their hats into the ring to make an excellent kit even better.
Among them is Aires -- bringing their improved horizontal stabilizers and elevators. Comparing fairly closely to the kit parts, the Aires version offers some slight differences in surface detail and panel location, as well as posable elevators.
Aires’ mold quality and fidelity of detail is exceptional, and the positionable elevators make a subtle contribution to improving this legendary 1/72 RAF tank killer. Highly recommended for the braille scale modeler wanting to really trick out his Typhoon Ib.
Thanks to Aires for the sample parts and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review.
Thanks to Plus Model for sending these elegant chairs from the Easy Line product series for review and thank you IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them! I am very appreciative of the chance to contribute back to the scale-modeling community.
