Scaled for the ART OF TACTIC games, Zvezda has created another niche for the plastic modeler. Nine parts make up the tiny tank, ten if you add the game flag. All the parts are nicely detailed and the overall fit is pretty good. My only gripe would be the sprue connections could have been more user-friendly. I will point out that during construction I did use glue, just to tighten up the seams; maybe the typical gamer would not be bothered by this, but, as a typical modeler, it bothered me…but not a big deal. I spent around 30 minutes on the build before it went to the paint shop. Also included in the box is a game flag (to be attached to the tank) and game card. There are no decals or painting charts provided with the kit.

Prominent on the nose of the F-101 Voodoo is a large pitot tube, which in 1/48 scale extends 1 1/16 inches (27mm). From a modeling perspective, such a large pitot presents several challenges. First, you hope that the part is not bent, broken, or molded out of round. Surviving that, you then need to remove the mold lines and ensure that the cross-section is round. Lastly, such a large pitot tube becomes a transportation liability during model shows and displays. This Quickboost product provides a safety net to the modeler who has had difficulty with any of these issues with the Monogram/Revell Voodoo kit.

Everyone knows the F-14D Tomcat and its swing wing design – Top Gun locked that down to the general public. Before the F-14 was built, Grumman produced the XF10F Jaguar, which was the world’s first swing wing fighter. Never heard of it? Me, either, until Planet Models produced a resin kit of it. One reason it never became famous is that only one was ever produced (although a second was started) and, like many early jets, it suffered from being…well, underpowered. Add that to the weird cantilever tail and the other problems, and the plane ended up being a test bed for swing wings, and I can say that lots of good information was learned and ended up in the F-111 and F-14. If you want to see one today, you can’t. Both of them were destroyed, so we have a model left to bring us that part of history.