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I guess the most important thing to keep in mind about this review item is that it is designed and fitted for the 20 plus year old 1/48 Mauve/Eduard kit and the similarly aged Academy P-40N/M. This aftermarket set is not intended for the new 2025 Eduard P-40 N and possibly forthcoming M.
The Eduard P-51Ds are excellence in plastic. They are beautiful plastic kits, but the landing gear is a little fragile. Enter Kazan Model Dynamics, with their HybridCAST sets. What does HybridCAST mean? There is an aluminum rod surrounded by resin pieces. This gives you superior strength along with the superior details offered by resin.
Packaged in a top opening stiff card stock box with plenty of foam to protect the parts. The instructions are printed on a single-sided sheet. This particular set has 20 resin pieces, but what sets these apart is the inclusion of aluminum tubing INSIDE the strength critical parts such as the landing gear struts and the actuator rods.
Finding helicopter crew member figures, especially in 1/48th scale has been like finding hen's teeth. Thankfully, ICM has listened, and provided modelers with some great figures in this scale. Finally, we have a modern helicopter crew in 1/48. These are the most recent US Army helicopter pilots and crew.
Packaged in a really sturdy top opening cardboard box with the artwork on a sleeve that fits over it protects the entire contents from anything short of fire or a trash compactor. Inside you’ll find a single sprue of light grey plastic that contains 32 beautiful parts for THREE figures.
There are two pilots and a crew chief. The crew wear A2CU OCP flight suits with Aircrew Combat Equipment (ACE). There is a two-sided instruction sheet included that has the ICM paint numbers and full color of the subjects. A nice touch is the small box that explains the multicam camouflage colors and how they should look.
With over 650 titles in print, Fonthill Media publishes high-quality subjects including Archaeology and Ancient History, Aviation, Biography, Local History and Heritage, Military and General History, Sport, Transport and Industrial History.
Arma Hobby is offering a great little accessory for anyone looking to create a WWII/Korea US airfield diorama, or even just a nice base for your 1/72 aircraft model.
This small base is nicely packaged in and a stiff cardboard envelope, somewhat reminiscent of “Apple style” clean design. The resin base appears to be 3-D printed and has extremely crisp detail. No flash or any attachment points to trim away, it is ready to paint and prime right out of the box (envelope). No instructions or paint diagram of any kind are included. But a neat little feature is a QR code that links to free 3D printer files for a group of airfield accessories such as fuel drums, wheel chocks, a fire extinguisher, and a few other goodies. Not having a 3D printer, I was not able to test these out, but it certainly is a nice little bonus!
