ICM from Ukraine has reboxed its Bristol Beaufort Mk.1, this time for service with the British Dominions. In the box you get their already known Beaufort, including a torpedo and torpedo cart. There are markings for Royal New Zealand, Royal Canadian and South African Air Forces. The New Zealand aircraft -one marking- was based in the UK, as well as one of the two from the Canadian forces. The other Canadian aircraft saw service in British Columbia. The South African options (two) saw service in Cape Town and, while not explicitly listed in the instructions, they also saw service in Operation “Ironclad” (the Madagascar invasion).

Being brand new molds (released in 2023) the overall fit and surface detail is excellent. Construction is relatively simple, but with the high part count, it takes time. Don’t get me wrong, each hour I spent building this model was highly enjoyable and I was glad to have so many hours of construction. But this kit is not a quick weekend build.

ICM continues to come out with interesting paint sets for their kits, and this one is no exception. As with all of the ICM acrylic paints that I’ve tested so far, I’ve found these to be smooth and creamy with no pigment separation in the bottle. They have excellent opacity and cover nicely with one coat and are clearly intended for hand painting rather than airbrushing. I’m finally overcoming my reluctance to paint figures with acrylics because of the excellent quality of these paints.

This set includes all the basic colors necessary to paint British infantry of World War 1. However, it is also applicable to British infantry in World War 2, U.S. Infantry in World War 1, and various Commonwealth forces in World War 1.

Here are the paints supplied in the set:

Recently HAD Models released several sets of decals specifically for US Navy F-14 aircrew. I don’t know if the translation program messed up when the title was translated into English, but these sets actually provide decals for the helmet markings and the flight suit patches for the arms and chest for Tomcat aircrews. It appears that these sets were originally created for 1/32 scale pilots and RIOs (Radar Intercept Officers – backseaters in the F-14) as the instructions state that the decals were scaled for Aerobonus 1/32 scale ejection seats and flight crew models, and then scaled down to 1/48 and 1/72 scale.