Javier Garcia de Gabiola, is from Spain and works as a lawyer. He has published numerous articles and books related to legal issues. Always interested in military history, he also regularly contributes to various Spanish military history magazines, for which he has written more than 50 articles and has published multiple pieces with the Universidad Autónoma de México. This is his first instalment for Helion’s @War series.

Helion is a UK based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published almost 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year, for readers around the world.

Belgium PJ Productions makes wonderful resin aftermarket pieces in all scales to enhance many models. This set is a couple modern European pilots in 1/72^nd scale. They are listed for a Rafale but would work in any similar plane also. The set comes with six pieces of finely cast dark gray resin- two pilot bodies and four arms. The pilots are NOT duplicates of one another and are different which is an excellent detail.

Assembly was straightforward- I removed the parts with a razor saw and scraped a couple fine seam lines off (there were very few) and glued the arms into position with super glue. The super glue filled any minor seams, so no putty was needed. I mounted the pilots on poles for painting and primed with Alclad gray.

This Kit

This is not a new kit and was previously reviewed by Mark Andrews in February 2020 and followed up with an after-market seat belt set review by Chris Smith. I strongly recommend you read both of these reviews and I hope I have avoided repeating those reviewers’ contents.

After it’s initial issue by ESCI, way back in 1983, this kit is clearly showing its age especially in terms of the industry’s newer molding technology. While I rate the fit of most parts is passible and the overall accuracy of the kit as good, you should be prepared for a 1983 ESCI kit effort (reboxed in 2001 and now 2020). I also have one of the earlier kits and cannot find any differences in the 37 years between these two kits.