Thanks to Piotr at Master-models for providing these metal gun barrels to improve our Hellcats, and thanks to our IPMS leaders for sending these my way!

The Eduard Hellcats have been around for a while now, and are great kits in their own right. Master details provide six astoundingly detailed 1/48 gun barrels to replace the kit plastic parts… read on!

Side-by-side comparison, Master Model’s gun barrels provide improvement on the kit items by providing depth and three-dimensional appearance over the kit parts. The kit guns are sufficient, but these bring the kit up that little bit…

The growing interest in World War I aircraft among model builders and aviation history buffs has fostered an increase in the variety of publications offering information about the subject. Among them is a well-researched hard cover book recently published by Crecy Publishing (and distributed in the US by Specialty Press) about the military airfields that populated the British landscape during and after WWI. The Brits referred to these facilities as Aerodromes, and they were numerous. In FORGOTTEN AERODROMES OF WORLD WAR I, author Martyn Chorlton documents a total of 502 RFC and RNAS sites by country and county. Many began as nothing more than a grassy field with a simple structure or two. Most have been lost to other uses in the nearly 100 years since they were constructed, but some still serve. Remnants of others can be found, but many of their names are etched in history.

I've had a hankering to build an H-34 Choctaw for some time now. When the Gallery Models kit was released, I debated which version to build, but I've always had an eye for that distinctive Marine Green under White scheme on the VH-34 variant. When Dave offered up the 1/48 VH-34D Marine One kit, I jumped at it.