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The Sonderkraftfahrzeng 8 was a German half-track that saw wide spread use during World War II. Its prime purpose was to tow heavy guns. Approximately 4,000 units were built between 1938 and 1945. It fought in many campaigns, mainly Eastern Front, North Africa, Normandy, and many more.
Once in a while, I like to build one of the older kits from the stash, adding additional details and such to bring it “up to modern standards”. One of these sitting in the to-do pile is the old AMT/ERTL F7F-3N Tigercat. This kit was recently re-boxed from Italeri, and is the only 1:48 plastic kit of this aircraft anywhere. Quickboost again provides a timely release with these replacement landing gear bay doors.
In the Box
The hanging bag with paper instruction insert comes with five resin parts on three casting blocks. All the bay doors are replaced with items in this set, including both pairs of main landing gear doors and the nose gear door. Casting is flawless in the familiar dark grey resin, and the attachments to the casting block is minimal.
Kit Contents
Scale Aircraft Conversion’s F.4/F-86 Landing Gear for the Airfix kit contains four pieces, three landing gear struts and a weighted replacement upper intake piece, sealed in a blister pack. The pieces were all nicely molded and detailed; however, they had a bit more grain than the original kit parts.
Construction
I started construction with the weighted upper intake. After weighing both parts on my (perhaps imprecise) kitchen scale, I found that the replacement intake weighed only one gram more than the original. The instructions called for a total of three grams to be placed above the intake. Therefore, I added a bit of additional weight to be on the safe side.
For the lovers of Soviet cold war armor, decades have gone by without any accurate, readily available kits. What was out were either resin or very limited run, and usually done from sketchy plans and grainy photos as a reference. The fall of the Iron Curtain saw the availability of reference material open up some, and a few kits from former Soviet Bloc countries trickled in, but we were still left wanting. Tamyia, Esci, Dragon, and others started covering the “heavy hitters” during the 1990s, yet that still left many vehicles untouched.
Enter the 21st century market with an onslaught of kits from the Far East. Trumpeter has been steadily working its way through the Soviet inventory, or so it seems, and after starting a series of eight-wheeled vehicles, they begin the four-wheeled with the release of the early model BRDM-2.
Quickboost is back again with a small accessory for an added finishing touch. They have been providing the modeling market with a whole series of useful aftermarket items that give a little extra detail or convenience at a very reasonable cost. These small sets tend to focus on one aspect of a model needing improvement – thus, the modeler can choose where to spend his energy, and money: on kit improvements. This small set from Quickboost provides some covers for the ALQ-99 ECM jamming pods found on the EA-6A, EA-6B, and EF/A-18G. Usually, these are seen on aircraft on static display at airshows, as I have yet to find some photos of them being used out in the fleet during operations, but I could be wrong.
