This set from Scale Aircraft Conversions is designed for the new 1/48 F6F Hellcat kits from Hobby Boss. There are nine beautifully cast metal parts in the set, and the quality is an improvement over the kit parts. Not that the kit parts are bad, but these SAC parts are very nicely done. As usual, there are no instructions provided, but since the metal parts are direct replacements for the plastic parts, it should be no problem for the average modeler to figure out where everything goes. As you probably already know, cyanoacrylate (CA) glue must be used on these parts.

There are very slight mold seams on the metal parts which will require cleanup, but you would have to do that with the kit parts anyway. I test fitted the main gear leg in the hole provided in the upper wing of the kit, and the fit was snug and solid. This set contains some very small and delicate parts and care will need to be taken when handling them.

The OH-6 is a compact light helicopter used for observation, light transport, training and light attack. This particular boxing depicts a Japanese aircraft used in the observation role.

This kit looks to be the Academy kit reboxed for Hasegawa. The molds have been around for quite some time but the moldings don’t show its age. The plastic is typical Hasegawa light grey plastic on four sprues. The plastic was quite shiny and polished. My review copy doesn’t have any flash or blemishes. The panel lines are recessed. There is a sprue of eight dark grey resin parts that includes antennas, FLIR, tail lights and spotlights. The resin pieces will require some careful cleanup but they look really great.

A sprue of clear styrene has the nose and windows.

Since I had picked up Bronco’s lovely little 40mm Bofors gun, I jumped at the chance to review the separate Gun Crew set. Unfortunately for me, they are dressed in more European Theatre uniforms (and possibly early war) while I plan to make my gun one based on Malta, so hopefully Bronco will do a Middle Eastern uniformed crew set in the near future.

That said, let’s take a look in the box and see what we got. There are 6 figures in the kit, which seems a pretty standard crew for the gun, but it could go up to 8 men.

The figures come in 8-11 parts including helmets and gas mask bags. While I have seen a few pictures of crews wearing the gas mask bags, most of the shots I have seen show the crews without these. This wouldn’t be an issue except the straps for the bags are molded to the torsos of the 5 crew members with bags, so some shaving would be required to remove these.