History

The Grumman F4F Wildcat was the US Navy's primary carrier-borne fighter aircraft at the start of WWII. Characterized by its stubby appearance the Wildcat had been developed from Grumman's successful range of pre-war biplanes and had entered service with the US Navy a year prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, replacing the Brewster Buffalo. By the time of the crucial battles for Midway and Guadalcanal, the F4F-4 model had become the most numerous variant and new tactics such as the ‘Thach Weave’ enabled American naval and marine pilots to gain the upper hand on the previously all-conquering Mitsubishi Zero. The F4F-4 introduced both folding wings and an extra .50 machine gun in each wing, adding to the Wildcats already powerful armament. Lessons learnt with the tubby but tough F4F were later incorporated into the F6F Hellcat, a fighter which went on to dominate the skies over the Pacific.

Lifelike Decals from Japan has released its 7th installment in a series of P-47s. The A/C you get are

Academy, the prolific Korean kit maker, continues to appeal to a broad spectrum of model makers. Kits that are easy to assemble have always been an entry point for modeling. Academy continues this trend with this very easy to assemble kit of the Titanic. There’s no need to retell that story here. The Titanic has been the subject of many kits, so here’s another one to add to your Titanic collection.

The Kit

The seven sprues have specific ‘Titanic’ colors, so they don’t require paint. The pieces are well molded, with a just a small amount of flash, something that a new modeler would more than likely not be too concerned about. The hull pieces are packaged separately with seven additional sprues of parts, including a small sprue of gold plated parts (the anchors and three props). Rather than water slide decals, the kit includes a small sheet of stickers.