Introduction: The primary organization of the IPMS/USA Review website is by IPMS/USA National Contest Class. Within each Class there are sub-menus by kits, decals, books, etc. The Miscellaneous Class is for items that are not class specific or that cross two or more classes.
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Manufacturers, publishers, and other industry members: IPMS/USA is pleased to offer your company the opportunity for product reviews. All product reviews are performed by IPMS/USA members, and are posted in the publicly-accessible section of our website. With very few exceptions, we perform full build reviews of new kit releases, aftermarket products, and supplies. If you would care to provide product samples for review, please contact John Noack, IPMS/USA 1st VP.
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Thanks to Caracal Models for sending these excellent decals for review. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them! I am very appreciative of the chance to contribute back to the scale-modeling community.
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor aircraft/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Douglas Aircraft. It was also adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force. The Phantom is a large fighter with a top speed of over Mach 2.2. It featured a tandem two-seat with twin-engines. It can carry more than 18,000 pounds (8,400 kg) of weapons, including air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and various bombs. The F-4 was designed without an internal cannon, but later models incorporated an M61 Vulcan rotary cannon. Beginning in 1959, it set 15 world records for in-flight performance, including an absolute speed record, and an absolute altitude record.
Thanks to Aires/Quickboost for providing more of their prolific output for us to review, and to IPMS leadership for sending it my way.
These are ridiculously simple additions to the basic Airfix BI/III merlin engine kit; they are drop in replacements for the kit air scoops, and as such have hollowed-out intakes in place of the kit items, which have the injection point where the hollow intake should be.
This is a great place to put the injection point, as it makes it blemish –free on the sides of the intakes…. If Airfix had over-engineered the intakes to have the injection points on the sides, along with two halves for the scoops, it would about be a nightmare to assemble correctly, and would have resulted in wailing and gnashing of teeth…
Quickboost once again saves us AMS modelers from ourselves… remove from the pour stubs, and glue in place.
A worthwhile purchase, highly recommended… Thanks to Aires/Quickboost for these items!
Thanks to Aires/Quickboost for providing more of their excellent aftermarket parts for IPMS USA to review, and to IPMS leadership for sending it my way.
The new Airfix Mark 1 1/48 Spitfire is, by all accounts, an excellent kit. Detail is on par with 1/32 kits… and will make a show-stopper if built to the max.
One area which can, however, be improved on,is the Rotol Propeller. The kit items are slightly heavy; a resin replacement is definitely in order!
The Quickboost item addresses two areas; the thickness of the propeller blades themselves, and the spinner itself. The kit item has a baseplate, to which a propeller assembly is attached (it is keyed, so you can’t really mess it up), after which you install the spinner itself.
Thanks to Aires/Quickboost for providing more of their prolific output for us to review, and to IPMS leadership for sending it my way.
Once more, a quick review for a quick upgrade; Quickboost have provided 12 miniscule Resin gun barrels with round cooling vents for use with the Airfix Lancaster B II. This is the Hercules radial-engined Lancaster release, but the gun barrels will work on this kit and their recent other Lancaster B I and III Merlin engine released kits as well. As noted in my other review of the .303 barrels with oval holes, these should work on just about any aircraft requiring .303 gun barrels.
The muzzles are hollow, and the simulation of the round perforations is well done. In my case, Painting them black, then using the side of a #2 pencil then (GENTLY) polishing with a soft cloth was able to bring out the detail.
