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Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$89.95

The German African campaign started with the landing by the Afrika Korps to help out the Italians. This harsh environment seesawed back and forth. This allowed the Bf-109 to evolve from the Emil and to the Gustav. Special Tropical variants were developed for the aircraft.

It is with this Eduard has released this boxing. This boxing includes the Friedrich and Gustav variants. The box top is a beautiful painting of Marseille’s F-4/Trop and a beautiful G-2 with mottled camouflage. Very motivational. The box itself is a sturdy cardboard box.

Inside the box are lots of light grey sprues. There are two of each sprue, I and H, which are the common sprues for the entire F and G line. There are two sprues that feature the unique fuselage and wings for the aircraft. You are able to build one F and one G model. You can’t build two Fs or two Gs. Two clear sprues are there as well for the canopy. There will be plenty of leftovers on the G sprue.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$8.00

IPMS/USA thanks the Aires team once again for sending us this simple, excellent item for use on a kit, in this case, a Quickboost engine exhaust replacement for the new-mold Revell 1/32 Spitfire Mk V through IX. And thanks to Phil and John for obtaining the sets for the team…

This set consists of two exhaust banks. This set is the fishtail openings version, and is perfectly designed to install in the Revell new mold 1/32 Spitfire Mk V through IX series.

Why buy? The kit items come in halves, split down the middle, and therefore have an almost impossible to fill seam which destroys the detail. Ugh.

Enter Quickboost.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
Company
Aerobonus
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$10.00

IPMS/USA thanks the Aires Aerobonus team once again for sending us this simple, excellent items for use in a diorama setting. And thanks to Phil and John for obtaining the sets for the team…

This set consists of one perfectly cast figure of a Kettenkraftrad driver. These vehicles were used on many German airfields later in the war to move smaller aircraft around the local flughafen. (One of these also served as a “Rabbit” decoy in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” in the last battle scene).

Not much to say here: It’s simple but can be done to excellent standard if you have the tools, time, and skills. With my painting ability, I could do a lot better, but I’m on deadlines. You get the idea. Paint, wash, highlight, done. I just love micro photography too: shows up every grain of resin dust that I can’t see with my old eyes…

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Furball Aero-Design
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$19.99

Who doesn’t like the bad guys? I’ve always had an affinity for them. I wanted to know who they were and how they operated. Well these decals from Furball Aero-Design highlight the ‘psuedo’ bad guys, the OPFOR or Aggressors as the Navy calls them. The F-5N and F-5F adversaries are some colorful aircraft used to replicate potential bad guys.

There are eight aircraft included on this sheet. They have markings that are sure to motivate you to build one of these. These are quite colorful and offer a variety of paint schemes.

The decals are packaged in a large ziplock bag with full color instructions for every aircraft. Inside you are treated to high quality paper printed on both sides in beautiful color. Each aircraft has it own page. There are five 8.5 x 11inch sheets. The cover shows the colorful selection. Then the aircraft are shown. There are seven F-5Ns and one F-5F. The back page contains the stencil instructions.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$7.00

The Do-335 has been well represented in 1/48th scale with the old, but venerable, Monogram kit and the more recent Tamiya one.

Master has had a long held reputation of producing some extremely accurate turned metal barrels and this set is no different. Packaged with a card stock protective backing inside a little ziplock bag are the five beautifully rendered pieces. The nose blast tube is in the front spinner, along with two 30mm cannon barrels on top of the fuselage is included. There is also a pitot tube and FuG-25 antenna. All of them are thin and have no mold lines and are perfectly round. Something I cant do in plastic. The best thing about these sets is that they are stronger and thinner than plastic.

The instructions are easy to understand and follow. You will have to drill some holes but the size and location are clearly shown.