The B-29 is probably best known as the aircraft that dropped the atom bomb, putting an end to WWII in the Pacific. The reissue of the Academy kit comes in a nice sturdy box, and is molded in a light grey plastic, with light recessed panel lines and good surface detail. The interior detail is very good for the scale, but unfortunately, you can’t see much of it. Crew bunks are even included for the aft section but there’s no way to see them. I decided to leave out some of these pieces in the rear section so less weight would need to be added to the nose to ensure my model sat on its nose wheel.

Fit is good, but the lead I added in the nose kept me from getting a tight fit on the forward fuselage. This caused me to shim the canopy then sand and blend the nose glass - I feel this was my error. The wings have a double spar which goes through the fuselage and makes for a nice wing-to-fuselage joint.

Overview

This is the second model in Dragon’s range of 1/35th military vehicles covering the Type 95 Light Tank “Ha-Go”, the first one being an “Early Production” vehicle, released in 2012. Unlike the battles in Europe or the Middle East in World War Two, tanks in the Pacific Theater were not used in the massive numbers seen in Europe, nor in any major tank vs tank battles. Tanks were mainly infantry support vehicles, both on the Japanese side as well as the Allied side. The Type 95 tank saw combat against Chinese and Russia forces in Manchuria on the mainland, as well as taking part in all the Imperial Japanese Army island campaigns in WW2. The tank was fairly light, weighing just 7.4 tonnes and it was designed primarily as an infantry support tank. It was the most produced tank in the Japanese arsenal with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries constructing about 2,300 vehicles. Being relatively small, it only had a crew of three.

Dragon has recently released a 1/35th model of the much used IDF UH-1N “Anafa” Troop transport helicopter. As a bonus, they have included a set of their Israeli Paratroopers – a figure set which was, I believe, the second set of figures released some decades back by the then-new Dragon Models, right behind their Soviet “Spetznatz” figures. As these figures have been on the market for almost 30 years, I will pass on reviewing them yet again and instead focus on the helicopter itself.