For those unfamiliar, Ultracast from Canada does a series of aftermarket parts and pieces for planes but also, makes some beautiful figures and in this case, it is a 1/32 German Luftwaffe Fighter pilot in 1/32nd scale. The kit comes in six parts and is very well sculpted by Mike Good. The kit has two different heads - one with a flying helmet and one with an officers hat. The parts are cast in light tan resin with minimal to no seam line.

I chose to go with the officers hat and mounted the head on a paint stick to hold it. I then added the arms and puttied the seams and mounted that on a painting stick to hold it. The arms seams were filled with Squadron white putty and then smooth with a Q-tip wet with lacquer thinner. I left off the holster for later. Once dry, all the pieces was primed and set aside a day to dry.

Revell’s PBY-5A Catalina has been around for 20 years now and I have seen quite a few built and it looks large and impressive when finished. The kit comes in two styles- the “-5” who has no wheel wells and the “-5A” which does. Eduard has released sets for the PBY-5A which allow improvements to the entire airframe. This set (#48827) addresses exterior details.

The first thing addressed by the photoetched set are the engines which are missing their wiring harnesses. These are well done and easily added but do take some time to get all the wires attached to the cylinders. There is also some grating for the air coolers.

The floats and wing ends get a little more detail with inspection ports on the wings and tie down points on the floats. I am surprised these aren't included in the floats set but that PE fret was packed so there may have been no room.

History

The Eurocopter SA 365/AS365 Dauphin 2 (Dolphin) is a medium-weight multipurpose twin-engine helicopter currently produced by Airbus Helicopters. It was originally developed and manufactured by French firm Aérospatiale, which was merged into the multinational Eurocopter company during the 1990s. Since entering production in 1975, the type has been in continuous production for more than 40 years. The intended successor to the Dauphin is the Airbus Helicopters H160, which is yet to enter operational service as of March 2015.[2]