I have a love for the unusual Naval airplanes – ones without the glitz and glamour of things like the F-14 Tomcat or F-18 Hornet. When Special Hobby graciously gave a kit of the AF-2s Guardian to IPMS/USA for review, I jumped on it (begged for it)

The Af-2S Guardian was the first purpose-built anti-submarine warfare plane for carrier use to enter the US Navy active duty in 1950. There were actually two planes used for this job- one to carry the large (at the time) radar and detecting equipment and a second plane to carry weapons to destroy the sub. This particular kit is the “Sub Killer” and would carry the weapons. The Guardian was the largest single-engine piston-powered carrier aircraft to see service. Around 200 were built.

Let’s look at the kit- Special Hobby is a limited run kit consisting of seven gray and one clear sprue, a single colorized photoetched sheet and lots of resin parts with a nice decal sheet representing two aircraft:

Rescue Wings is a Japanese anime cartoon known for its realistic portrayal of the Japan Air Self Defense Force’s (JASDF) Air Rescue Wing, in particular the Komatsu Rescue Squadron. The basic plot involves a helicopter pilot’s (2nd Lieutenant Uchida Kazuhiro) assignment to the JASDF Komatsu Air Base. This initial series ran for 12 episodes (an additional episode added to the DVD release) and was followed by two manga series and a live-action film. They were created with the full cooperation of the Air Rescue Wing.

U-125A

This fixed wing aircraft is based on the British Aerospace’s twin-engine Bae 125-800 private jet. These aircraft are modified for the search-and-rescue with large observation windows, a marker flare ejection system, a droppable liferaft, and an emergency equipment dropping system.

The Lockheed C-130 is a versatile aircraft. In production since 1954, the C-130J is the latest in a long line of models. The landing gear was designed for rough field operations, with large, low pressure main landing gear tires and a pair of low-pressure nose wheel tires. The original brake design was for a single disk (like in a modern car) and has been upgraded to a multi-disk unit. The brakes look the same once mounted onto the gear’s axle.

The kit comes with 10 pieces molded in grey resin, and is meant for the 1/48 Testors/Italeri C-130 kit. There are many fine details with the castings. A nice touch is the “Goodyear” emblems and the valve stems and groove lines molded into the tires to represent the spaces between the treads. The only disappointment I found was with the brakes – I wish the back of the main landing gear tires was “hollow” so that the brake details would sit inside, just like on the real aircraft.