Sincere appreciation to Model Rectifier for providing yet another review item, and to the IPMS USA reviewer corps leaders for sending it to me!

The progeny of this kit goes back to 1992, when it was first released by Academy. It has been available on several occasions with different markings, and parts of it (Most notably the wings and stabilizers) have been re-released as a B-50 and a KC-97 with appropriate additional sprues to address the major differences on these aircraft. I originally reviewed this kit back then, and can say the same observations on that kit are valid today.

ModelArt is a high quality Japanese language modeling magazine. This edition is a Japanese AFV Database plastic model guide for Japanese military vehicle kits in 1/35, 1/48, and 1/72-76 scales. The guide shows kits of Japanese vehicles, including AFVs, softskins, and figures. The kits are illustrated as built models or an Out-of-the Box view of the kit parts. The text is in Japanese, but there are many high quality photographs that illustrate the kits. The kits have English titles that give the name of the vehicle, kit manufacturer, scale, and name of the modeler.

The sections of the guide are organized by vehicle type. The start of each section includes a few in-action photos of the real vehicles, and at the end of each section is some modeling tips or a sampling of completed kits.

This is another issue of Eduard’s marvelous 1/144 Spitfire IXe kit. This time you get FOUR Spitfires in the box, with eight possible markings.

I was curious about what the Czech language phrase means. I tried several translation sites, but none of them worked. I finally went to Eduard’s web site and contacted them, asking what Naši se vracejí means. I got an almost immediate answer from Libor Havranek of Eduard support. It means “The boys are back”. Cool. Thanks very much for the info.

Since all 8 of the schemes offered in this kit, and they’re all late WW2 or post war, it makes sense. They’re all Czech nationals who flew Spitfires, either for the RAF or the Czech AF. And Eduard pays homage them.