Having built two of the ICM 1/32^nd scale Cobras I can tell you that the mounting point is a fragile joint. On my first one I broke it off twice and had to pin and glue it back on. It was frustrating as it was near the end of the build.

Well SAC has taken that frustration out of the equation. Inside their typical blister pack are two white metal landing gear and four parts for the ground handling wheels. Mine were perfectly cast and were exact replicas of the kit landing gear, but stronger. This set has the aerodynamic fairings installed on Vietnam era Cobras. These fairings were later removed and the round crosstubes remained.

As they were exact replicas of the kit landing gear, they also had the nubs on the end where the tow bar is supposed to go. This area is supposed to be a ring to hook the real tow bar in, however, the kit and SAC have the nubs. It is a simple operation to cut the nubs and drill progressively wider holes to replicate the real thing.

Many of the US fighter pilot figures are depicting older style safety equipment like helmets and oxygen masks. PJ production released a nice version of current Eurofighter “Typhoon” pilots with latest helmet. The new helmet has LED sensors on top of the helmet for head tracking. The helmet also allows a pilot to see below (or through) the airplane to target aircraft below their aircraft.

Tamiya has released a newly tooled kit of the M18 Hellcat. There are six new sprues along with a clear sprue from their M4A3E8 kit and a sprue for the 50-caliber machine gun that is from past kits. A decal sheet has two marking options. A length of black thread is used for the tow cable and has enough for two lengths. Two poly caps are included in a small bag. There are no photo-etched parts. The black and white instruction booklet is 16 pages long with 37 construction steps. A separate color three-page, tri-fold supplement has the two painting/marking schemes and a history of the M18 in eight languages. Something different with the instructions is that it shows painting and decal marking locations in each step, plus they are also on this supplement.