The first order of business: Extreme thanks to Squadron Mail order/MMD for providing IPMS/USA yet another review item. These folks are one of the oldest and most well-known plastic model kit distributors in the world, and we appreciate their providing us with review items!

This sheet highlights one of my favorite aircraft; the “Aardvark”, or F-111. Designed for use on the new Hobbyboss kits, it would be equally at home on the Academy versions.

The markings on this sheet are for three aircraft of a unit that I used to track while assigned to 17^th AF in Sembach, Germany; the 20^th FW from Upper Heyford in the UK. They used to fly down and “practice bomb” us on occasion… quite a “free” airshow, and guaranteed to soil your pants if you didn’t see them coming in full afterburner.

I'm a big Spitfire fan and I was really excited to review this new item from 3D-Kits. The decal sheet provides marking for four Spitfires. You get two identical sprues containing all the parts needed to convert two Spitfire Mk I's to Mk II standards. This set reminds me of the old Airform conversion set for 1/72 Spitfires from the mid-seventies, but much better. The parts are flash free and very nicely molded. A new seat, control column, Rotol propeller, blunt spinner and teardrop shaped Coffman starter fairing complete the conversion parts. This conversion is intended for Airfix (old and new tool), and Tamiya Spitfire kits. Although it may also fit the aging Hasegawa, Heller, and Revell kits as well (I don't have these kits handy and could not verify). The new parts are direct replacements for kit parts. However I found that the new seat will require a little adjustment to fit the Airfix kit to get an acceptable result. The decals options are as follows:

Editor's note: This review contains an embedded review of: Bronco Models 1/35^th scale Sherman T51 Workable Track Set Kit: AB3542 MSRP: $19.95.

Dragon Models Ltd. has blessed the Allied WW2 armor modeler with yet another version of the Sherman tank. This time around the modeler is presented with the 105mm howitzer version of the M4. This vehicle consisted of a 105mm gun, mounted in the so called “high bustle” turret, atop a “large hatch” (47 degree) M4 hull. The kit consists of 11 sprues of injection molded parts, slightly more than 450 parts, together with a fret of photo etched brass parts, a pair of DS 100 rubber tracks, and a short length of metal cable, and decals for three vehicles. Perhaps 100 parts are “surplus to needs”, and care needs to be taken when figuring out which parts go with which variant.