Finally, somebody has made figures for the helicopter models in 1/48 scale. Aero Line’s latest release is marketed as a Cobra crew. As far as I know there have been no previous US Army helicopter pilots available in this scale.

Packaged in a vacuformed shell, Aero Line has created two beautifully cast figures molded in light gray resin. The instructions are on the back of the insert card. There is no actual color callout, just the color profiles. The instructions show the flight suits in a Vietnam-era olive green like the two-piece flight suit of the time; however, with the way the figures are molded, you could easily modify them by removing the upper pants pockets and painting the flight suit in the sage green color of the one-piece and no one would be the wiser.

My thanks to Eduard for furnishing this photo-etch set for review and IPMS for allowing me to do it.

The Avro Lancaster of World War II fame can trace its linage back to the twin-engine Avro Manchester. The Manchester saw a lot of action in the early months of World War II. However, it was underpowered and generally did not meet RAF expectations. Using the Manchester as a starting point the Avro engineers increased the wing span, replaced the two Rolls-Royce X-24 Vultures with four Rolls-Royce V-12 Merlins, lengthened the fuselage and redesigned the tail. The results was a bomber with impressive performance and excellent flying characteristics. Its top speed was 282mph at 63,000 lbs. and its landing speed was 95-100mph using the old split flap design set to full down.

Background

Platz, out of Japan, has been involved in the 1/144th modeling community for a while. They have produced many of their own kits and have teamed up with another Japanese company called F-Toys. F-Toys produce various subjects, among them being 1/144th scale aircraft kits. These kits from F-Toys are typically pre-painted, mostly assembled, and somewhat snap together. Many 1/144th scale modelers will take these pre-painted F-Toys kits strip them down, add details, repaint, and decal them. However, now we are seeing Platz take those same F-Toys kits and produce them as traditional model kits. This Mitsubishi MU-2 is a prime example of that venture; first, it was released under the F-Toys name as a pre-painted kit, and now it’s released as a traditional model kit.