This is my first experience with Master Box products, which is primarily known for its figures series for military and aircraft models. I decided to step outside my comfort zone and build a subject I don’t typically build. This is the first bicycle model that I have assembled since building the old MPC Schwinn Ten Speed 40 plus years ago! The “Price of War” set is a multimedia kit which includes a figure with baggage accessories and a multi-media bicycle with a separate sprue and PE fret by North Star. The details are etched from brass and given the subject it would have been nicer to have them in stainless steel – more about this later.

Eduard has produced this nice photoetch set to add considerable detail to ICM’s Horch 108 Typ 40 WWII German Personnel Car. The set adds much better detail to the light and equipment mounting brackets on the front fenders, the brackets and plaques on the rear doors, the rifle clamps, and many other miscellaneous details.

History Brief

The Yakovlev Yak-1 was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings. It was extremely maneuverable, fast and well armed plus it was reliable and easy to maintain. The Yak-1 was truly the epitome of a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft. The Yak-1b featured a new bubble canopy with lowered rear fuselage, increased armor, ShKAS machine guns replaced with a single 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Berezin UBS, electrical and pneumatic firing of the weapons instead of the mechanical system, new control stick based on the Messerschmitt Bf 109 design, new gunsight, airtight fuselage, retractable tailwheel, improved engine cooling, and a Klimov M-105PF engine with better low-altitude performance. The "b" was an unofficial designation. After October 1942, all Yak-1s were built to this standard. The first flight (aircraft No.3560) took place in June 1942, with aircraft entering production in August. A total of 4,188 were built.