When Kinetic announced they were doing a F/A-18C series, there was a lot of interest based on the fact that the Hornet has been a long serving fighter with an iconic shape and lots of great markings. When the markings were announced, my interest became a little more personal as one of the markings was for VFA-25 on the USS Carl Vinson. I was lucky enough to be on that very tiger cruise and I have included a series of pictures of this plane. How could I not build it (plus you can never have enough Hornets).

Looking in the box, there are 18 light gray sprues with crisp engraved panel lines and riveting. Six of the sprues are dedicated to weapons (missile, bombs and pods). There are also two clear sprues, a photoetch sheet and the instructions which include separate building and painting instructions. A large decal sheet covering the six markings:

THANK YOU to our friends and suppliers at Aires/Quickboost for this excellent improvement set for the new Revell 1/48 tornado! And thanks also to the reviewer corps leaders for making the set available to me to review….

This six-part resin upgrade replaces the kit air data probes, the pitot tubes, and the Comm blade antennas. Once again Aires does the hard part; Basically you remove the parts from the pour stub with a sharp blade, clean up, and install them in place of the kit items. Be careful, because they are HYPER fragile and prone to destruction. That makes the scale fidelity worthwhile, but if you play sky-pilot with your models, well…expect them to disappear or just break off. Forewarned!

The pictures tell the story. I did not get the blade antenna seated well enough, so that’s a re-do for later.

This set is highly recommended for improved detail;. Thanks again to Quickboost and IPMS USA for providing these items…

Russian aerial rockets have a fascinating history, and this little creature is very much a part of that history. Design work on this range of weapons began in the 1930s, and they were first deployed operationally during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, part of the early war animosity between the Soviet Union and the expanding Japanese empire. During this engagement, RS-82 rockets were fired against Japanese aircraft from I-16 fighters, bringing down 16 fighters and 3 bombers – certainly one of the earliest instances of successful air-to-air missile attacks. Later, these same weapons were used in Air-to-ground attacks against hardened targets, such as armor. Investigating further, I’ve found pictorial instances of these being mounted on the I-16 Polikarpov, the Il-2 Sturmovik, as well as Lend-Lease aircraft such as the P-40 Warhawk and Hawker Hurricane. In fact, these little stingers were mounted on virtually every Russian aircraft used during the Great Patriotic War.