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
Mike Hinderliter
Published on
April 17, 2011
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$5.95

Quickboost just keeps adding to their line of resin aircraft accessories. The latest addition is for the Hasegawa Ta 154. It is up to their usual standards; molded in grey resin, smooth, seamless and bubble free. One thing of note is that they are really easy to remove from the mold block because of a nice perforation. It only took me a couple of minutes with my saw blade to remove them. Another plus is that the exhausts are bored out, which would be a real pain if you tried to do it on the kit part.

The exhausts that come in the Hasegawa kit look alright and would make an acceptable model but the Quickboost replacements are superior because of how they are bored out which makes for more realism, especially in a photo. These exhausts are very easy to install, and they just fit right in.

Review Author
David Wrinkle
Published on
April 17, 2011
Company
True Details
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$14.99

Description

3 resin parts, decal sheet and a decal / paint guide to convert the stock Wingnut Wings SE5a 'Hisso' kit to James McCudden's B4863. Included with the conversion are the shortened exhaust stacks and a replacement cockpit deck representative of McCudden's aircraft. As an added bonus you get 8 resin parts used to construct a 1/32 scale figure of McCudden.

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
April 16, 2011
Company
Squadron Products
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$10.00

The first order of business: Extreme thanks to Squadron Mail order/MMD for providing IPMS/USA yet another review item. These folks are one of the oldest and most well-known plastic model kit distributors in the world, and we appreciate their providing us with review items!

This sheet highlights one of my favorite aircraft; the “Aardvark”, or F-111. Designed for use on the new Hobbyboss kits, it would be equally at home on the Academy versions.

The markings on this sheet are for three aircraft of a unit that I used to track while assigned to 17th AF in Sembach, Germany; the 20th FW from Upper Heyford in the UK. They used to fly down and “practice bomb” us on occasion… quite a “free” airshow, and guaranteed to soil your pants if you didn’t see them coming in full afterburner.

Review Author
Dan Mackay
Published on
April 14, 2011
Company
3D-Kits
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$11.64

I'm a big Spitfire fan and I was really excited to review this new item from 3D-Kits. The decal sheet provides marking for four Spitfires. You get two identical sprues containing all the parts needed to convert two Spitfire Mk I's to Mk II standards. This set reminds me of the old Airform conversion set for 1/72 Spitfires from the mid-seventies, but much better. The parts are flash free and very nicely molded. A new seat, control column, Rotol propeller, blunt spinner and teardrop shaped Coffman starter fairing complete the conversion parts. This conversion is intended for Airfix (old and new tool), and Tamiya Spitfire kits. Although it may also fit the aging Hasegawa, Heller, and Revell kits as well (I don't have these kits handy and could not verify). The new parts are direct replacements for kit parts. However I found that the new seat will require a little adjustment to fit the Airfix kit to get an acceptable result. The decals options are as follows: