Growing up near the beach, I saw plenty of double and triple-hull sailboats. I always thought that they were so cool and fast. So then I saw photos of the triple hull USS Independence, I knew I had to have a model of this ship. It looks so cool and fast, rumors are speed capability of 50+ knots.

The kit is modeled in typical Trumpeter gray and clear and consists of seven sprues (two clear), an upper hull, lower hull and three photo-etched frets. Also included with the kit are typical twelve page Trumpeter instruction booklet, a decal sheet, and a five-view color painting and marking guide.

Looking at each of the sprues, I found that the detail was crisp with no flash. However, I did find some ejector pin markings that need to be addressed, specifically in the hanger bulkheads. If you plan to keep the hanger door closed, as I plan to, you won’t have to deal with these.

Model Art magazine is a very well known model magazine from Japan. It seems to do well selling here, even though it is written completely in Japanese. They really do believe in the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. There are so many wonderful pictures in this magazine that you can really tell what is going on.

The magazine is 7 1/8 inches X 10 1/8 inches and is printed on glossy stock. Most of the pictures are in color and also a lot of black-and-white, toward the back. This magazine looks more like a trade paperback than a magazine, and it has a superb binding. No pages falling out here! This book is built to last for many projects to come.

Aires now offers two types of resin wheels for detailing P-40 models built from 1/72 Academy kits (as well as those marketed by other kit manufacturers). By producing these two sets, Aires actually provides something for detailing all versions of the P-40 (and P-36) in 1/72 scale. Both sets also include pre-cut vinyl paint masks and painting instructions. The resin castings feature crisp details and are accurate representations of the real thing.

Set #7257 provides a pair of wheels with straight tread tires on the later style eight-spoke hubs that Curtiss introduced with the N model P-40. They are more accurately detailed than the kit wheels provided in the Academy kit…that have a diamond tread pattern. These wheels, in reality, were actually smaller than the ones equipped on all previous P-40 versions, but in 1/72 it is difficult to tell that the Aires wheels are the same size as the wheels in set #7258.