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Review Author
Keenan Chittester
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$12.95

Scale Aircraft Conversions continues to crank out metal landing gear for a lot of recent kits. One of their latest offerings is this set for the impressive 1/48 Zvezda Bf-109F kit. The SAC set contains both main gear with separate oleo scissors, and also a new tailwheel. The tailwheel appears to be slightly smaller in diameter than the kit part; otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be any difference.

Book Author(s)
David Fletcher, illustrated by Henry Morshead
Review Author
Andrew Birkbeck
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$17.95

At the outset of the First World War, motorized weaponry was still in its infancy. The machines of today’s modern military had not yet been invented: the tank, the armored personnel carrier, self propelled field artillery. Among the very first Allied armored cars, the very best were built atop chassis produced by Rolls-Royce, with the very first Rolls-Royce armored car being a privately owned vehicle fitted with a machine-gun and limited sections of armored plating. It was pressed into service by the Royal Naval Air Service in Flanders, 1914. By 1915, approximately 100 Rolls-Royce chassis had been acquired by the British Army, eventually finding themselves sent to units scattered across the globe: India, the Middle East, Europe, and South Africa. Post WW1, they were to be found from Ireland to Shanghai, making a final if brief appearance in the initial days of the Second World War. The Roll-Royce armored car’s most famous proponent was T.E.

Review Author
Pablo Bauleo
Published on
Company
Tamiya
Scale
1/100
MSRP
$60.00

Tamiya has re-released its Space Shuttle Orbiter kit. It has included a few new sprues to depict more modern payloads, like the “Raffaello” multipurpose module, the Orbiter Docking Systems, and a few others.

Even when the kit boxing is called “Atlantis,” the boxing actually provides markings for the whole Shuttle Fleet and for all the program stages (early, mid, and late). The markings plus the extra parts makes this boxing the best value of all the Tamiya Space Shuttle boxings.

Given that this is a re-release, you get a 20+ year-old molds and kit engineering with a combination of recessed and raised detail. There is almost no flash, but some significant sink marks, mainly on the bottom of the model and around the nose. This kit has been criticized for not having tile detail; however, considering all the filling and sanding required on the bottom, it is actually better not to have tile detail. A modeler could scribe the detail, if so desired.

Review Author
Rob Benson
Published on
Company
Italeri
MSRP
$3.50

Packaging and Initial Impression

The paints are contained in 20 ml plastic poly bottles with flip caps. The clear gloss is contained in a 35 ml plastic bottle with a flip cap. The bottles are clearly labeled with simple instructions of “shake well” and “for airbrush dilute properly”.

My sample bottles tended to spit paint a bit when “flipping” the cap open, but that may be a simple consequence of opening them at 7500 ft where I live. The dropper in the cap and a squeezable bottle provide a nice controlled dispensing of the paints and clear coat.