Does anyone who is into historical modeling not know of Thermopylae and the famous last stand of the 300 Spartans? Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by the Greek Hoplite and this period in history, although I will NOT be going into a review of the recent movie on this subject. Let it just be said that this battle and those that occurred around the same period determined, to a great degree, the world as it stands today.
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The Ka-27/Ka-29 Helix helicopter family is a follow-on to the Ka-25 Hormone helicopter. Like the Ka-25, the Ka-27/29 has contra-rotating stacked rotors eliminating the need to a tail rotor to counter torque. Like most helicopters, the Helix’s cockpit is very visible and unfortunately, the seats included by most kit manufacturers do not bear any resemblance to those of the actual helicopter.
This set from Aires, part of its Quickboost line, seeks to remedy this by providing very nicely detailed seats with the harnesses. The set includes four seats, which allows you to outfit two kits as there are only two seats in the front cockpit of the Helix. The seats are not identical, they each have different configurations for the lap belts, as unless the helicopter is at an airshow, on the actual aircraft, the lap belts end up in lots of different configurations depending on how they are unbuckled and set or tossed aside.
I think most military modelers are pretty familiar with the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944 – the single largest endeavor yet by the human race in history. What a lot of people are not familiar with, however, are the strategic needs that came up immediately in the aftermath – mainly, the daunting task of equipping and supplying the massive Allied forces now on the European mainland. For that, they needed more ports of supply, and those were for the most part still in German hands. This book details the grueling job facing the Allies of wrestling these away from the Axis as quickly and efficiently as possible. The Axis, on the other hand, were just as determined to either hold these positions or destroy their usefulness to the Allies before succumbing.
Modern warfare within the last few decades has seen some remarkable (and sometimes deeply disturbing) changes. For the most part, combat in this century is no longer a matter of state-versus-state conflicts with large standing conventional armies facing off. It has instead devolved into much more local, sometimes tribal skirmishes with small, highly mobile forces either fighting other similar units or challenging large state armies with hit-and-run tactics which are oddly reminiscent of how American citizens fought against the much larger and better equipped British forces during the American Revolution. In a sense, what goes around comes around.
Our friends at BSI sent along a box of current and new releases across their line of CA products. Some of these may be familiar to you, others, like their new Plastic-Cure brush on product, were new to me.
Let’s take a look at the family of BSI products:
BSI-105 Plastic-Cure Adhesive: this new ½ ounce product comes in a bottle with a brush cap. Applied like many solvent based adhesives, it is applied to one of the mating surfaces and cures up in 10-20 seconds. It reacts to the Accelerator product as well, if an instant cure is desired. It won’t fill large gaps but is ideal for joints where the two surfaces make intimate contact (think fuselage seams, upper to lower wing joints, etc.)