Many thanks to Mr. Ross MacMillan of Scale Aircraft Conversions and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to try this neat conversion and replacement set for the new Kitty Hawk TF-9J. I am delighted to report on another sweet add-on and upgrade.

The 7 white-metal parts arrived in a blister pack, backed by the distinctive SAC company logo. The heft of the parts is very noticeable. All parts are free of sprues with the exception of the main mount retractors and nose well equipment. The parts require very little buffing, cleanup and polishing. The TF-9J kit gear struts directly replace the SAC parts. The main mount parts and nose strut parts attached to the kit fuselage with no difficulty. Kit parts that are replaced by SAC parts are D4 and E31, 33, 34. No replacement is provided for D1, but no replacement appears to be needed.

Revell surprised model builders earlier this year by announcing they would be releasing a new Stearman PT-17 in 1:48 scale. It didn’t take long for some of those on the Internet who delight in predicting things to rumor that Revell was just going to rebox the long-standing Lindberg kit. Well, the predictions were wrong. Revell has presented us with a very nice…let’s say, state-of-the-art kit that is definitely a new tooling and offers a very nice alternative to the Lindberg kit at a very reasonable retail price.

A brief history on the F-14. The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a fourth-generation, supersonic, twinjet, two-seat, wing fighter. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program following the collapse of the F-111B project. The F-14 was the first of the American teen-series fighters, which were designed incorporating the experience of air combat against MiG fighters during the Vietnam War. The F-14 was retired from the United States Navy on September 22, 2006.