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Review Author
Dick Montgomery
Published on
Company
Hauler
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$11.50

Hauler-Brengun is well known as a supplier of high-quality aftermarket detail parts for aircraft, as well as other subjects. Many of these aftermarket items are resin, P.E., or a combination of the two mediums.

Marketed under the “Brengun” label, this review looks at the Brengun BR48107 Mark 24 Mine “Fido” Torpedo. The name is a little confusing. Is it a mine or a torpedo? A little history is appropriate at this point.

Googling Mk.24 Mine “Fido” Torpedo received a number of hits. I chose the Wikipedia site and the explanation for the name, as well as a description of the “Fido” and its operational history. The following paraphrases the introductory paragraph found on the Wiki site.

Book Author(s)
Lechoslaw Musialkowski; Illustrator: Karolina Holda
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$25.00

Lechoslaw Musialkowski author the latest in Mushroom Model Publications' series of aircraft used in the Polish Air Force. This volume's focus is on the Petlyakov Pe-2 / Upe-2 and the Tupolev USB. This volume represents Lechoslaw Musialkowski’s fourth book for MMPBooks. MMP was founded in 1996 by Roger Wallsgrove, to publish "Mushroom Model Magazine". This quarterly modeling magazine was developed from "Mushroom Monthly”, a club newsletter which ran from 1985 to 1995, achieving a worldwide reputation for quality articles, fearless and honest reviews, and a great sense of humor. From 1997 the magazine was produced in collaboration with Robert Peczkowski and Artur Juszczak (Stratus), which meant a big leap in print quality and design. MMP expanded into book publication in 1999, and since then we have built up a list of books on aircraft and aviation, naval, military vehicles, and military history.

Review Author
Jarrod Booth
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$10.00

The Gloster Meteor was one of the iconic, pioneering jet fighters to become available during the final year of World War Two.

Master Models is a Polish company that produces some of the finest aftermarket brass accessories to enhance just about any scale model. I have used their offerings before, and love the final look and relative ease of using them.

Airfix has released a couple of Meteor kits over the last few years, and I recently snapped one up from my local hobby shop.

The kit pitot is represented as a straight plastic tube with no relief whereas, I believe, it should taper in towards the end. I clumsily broke the plastic tube when removing it from the sprue and super glued it back together for the pictures here.

Review Author
Allan Murrell
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$19.96

Eduard has released a photoetch upgrade set for its new tooled Tempest Mk.V which in its self is a great kit. This upgrade set is a single large Photo etch sheet.

In the box is:

  • 1 photoetch detail set
  • 1 instruction sheet

Construction

The first area of the upgrade is for is the engine intake, the set provides the mesh for all four surfaces of the Intake and make a big difference with the look once complete.

Next are parts for the two main landing gear bays, in four stages. The first stage is simple. On stage to you have to remove the location pins of part E68 and E69 from the original kit to allow then to fit. Also at stage two it refers to part E39 which should actually be part E32. I would also suggest that the parts 19, 20, 21 and 22 are installed before the kit parts E71 and E73. This will make it a lot easier to install them.

Review Author
Keenan Chittester
Published on
Company
Kinetic Model Kits
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$39.99

This is the first injection-molded 1/48 kit of the M346 Advanced Fighter Trainer, which first flew in 2004. It is currently used by the air forces of Italy, Israel, Poland and Singapore. It was originally a joint venture between Aermacchi and Yakovlev, and you can definitely see the similarity to the Yak-130 Russian trainer.

The kit is molded in a medium gray plastic and contains just over 270 parts. The molding is truly top notch, which is one of the hallmarks of the new Gold range of kits from Kinetic. This was the first kit produced in their new manufacturing facility. There is a small photo etch (PE) fret that contains seatbelts, the HUD frames, rearview mirrors for the inside of the canopy, various vents on the fuselage, and the small winglets. The clear parts are very nicely done with two different options for the canopy: one with the explosive cord molded into it and the other without. And happily the canopies do not have a seam running down the middle! Hooray!