Welcome to the IPMS/USA Reviews site!

Introduction: The primary organization of the IPMS/USA Review website is by IPMS/USA National Contest Class. Within each Class there are sub-menus by kits, decals, books, etc. The Miscellaneous Class is for items that are not class specific or that cross two or more classes.

IPMS/USA Members: We encourage you to submit reviews, both here and to the Journal. To volunteer for membership in the IPMS/USA "Reviewers Corps" and submit your own reviews, please read the Guidelines For Submitting Product Reviews.

Manufacturers, publishers, and other industry members: IPMS/USA is pleased to offer your company the opportunity for product reviews. All product reviews are performed by IPMS/USA members, and are posted in the publicly-accessible section of our website. With very few exceptions, we perform full build reviews of new kit releases, aftermarket products, and supplies. If you would care to provide product samples for review, please contact John Noack, IPMS/USA 1st VP.

To learn more about IPMS/USA, please see our About Us page.

Review Author
David Horn
Published on
Company
Caracal Models
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$14.99

Caracal Models is one of leaders in aviation decals offered in 1/32, 1/48, 1/72 and 1/144 scale with many unique subjects never offered before now. This B-1B Lancer (“BONE”) is a continuation of a very popular subject with large colorful nose art and some tail flash.

Printed by Cartograph, the four sheets are printed perfectly with the small markings are very fine and easy to read. Two of the four sheets are dedicated to walkways, stencils and standard markings. The other two sheets are unique to each subject. Markings included for McConnel (127th BS in 2000), three Dyess aircraft, one Ellsworth and one Robins AFB aircraft. There are instructions consist of eight color sheets that clearly show placement of markings for the six subjects. The instructions indicate the correct FS paint color (one color makes it easy) for all aircraft with note options of painting the refueling receptacle instead of a decal.

Review Author
Mike Lamm
Published on
Company
Airfix
Scale
1/76
MSRP
$7.99

The recent rerelease of Airfix’s catalogue of 1/76 AFVs has generated a little bit of a buzz among Airfix fans, many of whom grew up building these little gems as lads. Now, as adults, they get to harken back on the days of yore with the reboxing of these little beauties. I myself never had much of an opportunity to build Airfix kits in my youth, but have taken to them as an adult. Whether it’s a fiddly older kit, or one of the new-tool ones in the shiny red boxes, getting back into the hobby later in life also meant finding some great new, and OLD, kits to build.

Review Author
Ben Morton
Published on
Company
OKB Grigorov
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$11.00

Without expressed or written consent, I stole the following from an IPMS/USA Review by Mike Lamm: OKB Grigorov is a small model company based in Bulgaria. The company, begun in 2002, focuses primarily on AFVs, tanks, and naval ships in 1/72, 1/350 and 1/700 scales, and they have an extensive list of after-market products available. They produce full resin kits with photo-etch enhancements, as well as resin, photo-etch, and white metal conversion pieces for other models. More recently, they began producing some plastic AFV kits.

Review Author
Jim Pearsall
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/144
MSRP
$4.48

Master Model of Poland produces small brass parts for detailing models, be they aircraft or ships. They have parts for aircraft in 1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/72, and 1/144, mostly pitot tubes, refueling probes and gun barrels.

This product is for the MiG-29. It's more complex than many other pitot tubes because it's got two tiny vortex generator fins, one on each side of the pitot tube. So the package contains the pitot plus a PE fret with the vortex generators.

Installation of the pitot tube is pretty simple. I used the Academy kit for this review. The Academy MiG-29 has a flat spot at the tip of the nose for the pitot. So it was fairly easy to drill a .3mm hole in the center of the spot and glue the pitot in place.

Review Author
Ken Prager
Published on
Company
Hasegawa
Scale
1/24
MSRP
$52.99

The 1992 Japanese touring car championship season was the 8th edition of the series. The series was nine events long running April thru November, Finishing up at the Fuji International Speedway in Japan. the series was run under several different regulations during it's existence. The series included international categories such as group A and Super Touring which allowed both Japanese and foreign built cars. Tom's Toyota's were competing against the likes of BMW, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu. Most were factory sponsored and a few were not. There was still some serious competition. Tom's: Tachi Oiwa Motor Sports was founded in 1974 by Nobuide Tachi ad Kiyoshi Oiwa. The pair were able to use TRD with very good results in tuning and modifications to the car and a good long term R&D program with Toyota. As a result of this they were able to go racing with fac- tory sponsorship winning championships in various categories.