Book Author(s)
Tom Pope
Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
July 24, 2011
Company
Tom Pope
MSRP
$22.00

Editor: Contact Tom Pope for obtaining the drawings.

It’s not often I do a review on something before I have fully worked it, but this one deserves the time. How many of you have the Tamiya 1/350 USS Enterprise in your stash? And how many of you have thought of making a hangar deck for the model, but didn’t want the hassle of cut/fit/throw away, repeat? I just finished the Dragon Independence, and can categorically state a hangar deck makes a major impact on the final product… Why not the Enterprise? Although this is not provided in the kit, it doesn’t require too much work; that is, unless you don’t have dimensions and detail.

Review Author
Jack Wade
Published on
July 23, 2011
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$6.65

This is a simple replacement part that is substantially more detailed than the kit part. It is molded perfectly with no flash or bubbles to be seen. The pull handle is provided as a separate part on a common casting block with the seat. The parts must be separated from the casting block with a saw and the pull handles glued in the appropriate location for which a diagram is provided.

Pictured here with the Quickboost example are the kit seat and an example from the now out of production Cutting Edge offering for comparison. Obviously the difference is with the details including additional “plumbing” and safety belts. The Quickboost example is considerably more “strappy” than the older Cutting Edge product and any preference for one or the other may well be a matter of personal taste as both seem to be accurate depending on how the belts fall when left to rest. The busy look of the Quickboost seat dresses up the cockpit nicely with little fuss for the modeler.

Review Author
Jack Wade
Published on
July 23, 2011
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$4.88
  • QB 72 269 (flaps) $4.88
  • QB 72 270 (slats) $3.70

These two sets allow the Academy F-8 kit to be displayed with the flaps and slats dropped. The Academy Crusader is a very nifty kit - one of their best. The kit offers the option of having the variable incidence wing in the raised position, but the flaps are fixed in the up position and the slats, although separate parts, are not designed to be positioned downward either. Unless you don’t mind bending the accuracy rules, you can not pose the wing in the up position because the flaps and slats automatically dropped when the wing was in the raised position on the real thing. To maintain accuracy, the modeler wishing to display the wing in the raised position needs to resort to modifying the kit parts. These sets from Quickboost are designed for the task.

Review Author
Andrew Birkbeck
Published on
July 22, 2011
Company
Tamiya
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$29.00

The Panzerkampfwagen II, or Pzkfw. II for short, was a light tank produced as a stop gap measure by the German armaments industry for the German Armed Forces prior to and during the early stages of WW2. What the German High Command really wanted was the more powerfully armed Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks, but German industry found producing the more complex heavier tanks in any meaningful numbers beyond their capacity, at least initially. That said the Pzkfw. II series of light tanks went on to serve with distinction during the initial phases of the War, especially in the Polish and French Campaigns of 1939 and 1940, with nearly 1,900 vehicles of all marks eventually seeing production.

Book Author(s)
Andy Evans
Review Author
Jack Wade
Published on
July 22, 2011
Company
SAM Publications
MSRP
$32.94

This is another fine publication in this now well established series. This reviewer has collected several volumes in the series and this issue is indeed an improvement over earlier volumes in the series and is simply superb. Whereas earlier titles devoted a number of pages to obscure sometimes one-off experimental variants of the subject aircraft type, the more recent volumes have skipped the pedantic overview of the type’s development in favor of more thorough coverage of standard in-service variants including detailed walk around photos and operational history. Another welcome improvement is that this volume is printed in full color.