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Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$5.00

I’ve built three of the Eduard Bf-109s and absolutely loved the finished product. Is it over-scaled? Slightly. Get over it. It is a nice 1/47th scale model. I can’t wait for their reengineered one too.

That said there are a lot of really nice things to do with the kit. The rear bulkhead is a separate item added when the fuselage halves go together. This little gem of resin has the bulkhead with the access door closed. This part is properly proportioned and has the proper relief of the door. Adding it to the model will be easy enough and the part is a direct replacement for the kit part.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can get yours directly from Aires at https://www.aires.cz/en/ or at your local hobby shop or online retailer.

Book Author(s)
Robert Forsyth with Eddie J. Creek
Review Author
Marc K. Blackburn
Published on
Company
Specialty Press
MSRP
$99.95

Specialty Press is a publisher and distributor of aviation books. Their long running series on in-depth design and operational histories of various aircraft in the Luftwaffe continues with the publication of their comprehensive look at the Junkers Ju 52. What the C-47 was to the Allies, the Ju 52 was to the Axis. The trimotor transport served as the primary pre-war civil aviation aircraft for Germany and during the war it served on every front in the war in a wide variety of roles – bomber, transport, ambulance, minesweeper, and seaplane.

Review Author
Rob Benson
Published on
Company
Hataka Hobby
MSRP
$16.99

Thanks to Hataka Hobby and Steven International for sending samples of this new line of acrylic model paint. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them! I am very appreciative of the chance to contribute back to the scale-modeling community.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$17.00

The F-15 sits up high on fragile bird like landing gear and let’s face it the plastic kit parts are pretty flimsy. This is where white metal landing gear come in.

Packaged on a cardboard backing with a plastic enclosure glued on the front, the parts are loose inside the packaging. There are three white metal parts, one for each landing gear. The three landing gear parts are made of white metal that looks blemish free, however, my example had the large support strut slightly bent. Nothing drastic or dramatic, it was easy enough to straighten out. I can’t find any seam lines on any of the pieces. All the pieces had one little attachment point that will need to be removed. Very small and easy enough to do with hobby knife and sandpaper.

The SAC metal landing gear is a stronger copy of the kit gear. An added bonus is that the landing gear are already partial built compared to the kit gear. The three gear struts are direct replacement gear for the kit ones.

Review Author
Jim Pearsall
Published on
Company
Furball Aero-Design
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$15.99

Furball Aero Design is a new decal company. They have teamed with Detail & Scale who I have admired and trusted for many years, to turn out interesting and correct decals and marking schemes for 1/48 modern US aircraft. They also have vinyl mask sets for those kits.

This decal sheet consists of all of the markings you would need to do two Blue Angels aircraft, either two TF-9s or two F9Fs, or one of each.

The Blue Angels flew the Cougar from 1954 to 1957, when it was replaced with the F11F Tiger.

The decals are printed by Cartograf of Italy. I put Cartograf as the industry standard for quality decals. My basis for this is toughness of the decal film and the fact that it only takes about 15 seconds in the water for even the largest decal to come loose from the backing. Even I can get a decent looking set of markings using Cartograf.