Frank Landrus

Frank retired from the Ophthalmic industry with over thirty-six years of Research and Development experience. Frank's first model kit was a 1959 Hawk 1/72 US Marines Vought AU-1 Corsair and has been building models for over sixty years. Frank's first encounter with IPMS was attending a North Central Texas ScaleFest show in 1984. Frank soon became more involved in Make-N-Take activities and became the IPMS Western Coordinator for Make-N-Takes [West of the Mississippi River]. Make-N-Takes quickly became a local model contest and airshow staple reaching a high of reaching over 1,300 children before the COVID shutdown. Frank has volunteered to assist in contest judging since 1985 and is currently the Nationals Head Figure Judge until he is dead or they find someone better.

IPMS Number
35035
Pic

Reviews By Author

Front Cover

Windsock World War Centenary Autumn 2015, Vol.31, No.3

Published:
Book Author(s): Ray Rimell, Editor
Company: Albatros Productions, Ltd.

The Autumn 2015 edition of Windsock World War Centenary is the third edition of Volume 31. This edition’s cover story features an enlarged version of Ronny Barr’s Pfalz D.III 4059/17 side profile as Lance Krieg dives into the Silbergrau color debate. David Hardie provides his build notes for the Wingnut Wings Roland C.II ‘Walfisch’ along with 19 photos illustrating how he did it.

The first of a series by the late Harry Woodman focuses on an unpublished update to his rare Scale Model Aircraft in Plastic Card that portends to be a must have. This feature provides updates to the original and is supplemented with plenty of archival material and color photos. The color feature by arvoart.com is the 15th part of the Great War Paint and depicts fifteen aircraft, highlighted by the… more

Book Cover

Hemi: A History of Chrysler's Iconic V-8 In Competition

Published:
Book Author(s): Geoff Stunkard
Company: CarTech

Geoff Stunkard provides an insight into his decades of experience as a photographer, writer and editor. If you have ever lifted a copy of Mopar Muscle magazine, you know who he is. Currently he is the owner of Quarter Milestones Publishing based in Johnson County, Tennessee. Geoff Stunkard has delivered what is perhaps the definitive history of the development and racing of the Chrysler 426 Hemi engine.

Geoff Stunkard traces the history of the Hemi engine’s development at Chrysler, from the first Hemi installed in the Republic XP-47H in 1945 to the last in 1969, the A279 project. Of course, Chrysler’s merger with Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG in 1998 has since resurrected the Hemi for street and competition, but Geoff Stunkard focus for this book is the first and second generation… more

Package

RAF SE.5a "Hisso" Main Landing Gear

Published:
Company: Scale Aircraft Conversions

Scale Aircraft Conversions has released replacement landing gear for the Wingnut Wings 1/32 Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5a “Hisso”. The supplied items include two main gear legs and the main gear axle. All three parts are loose in the blister package. You will need to remove the metal sprue from the main gear legs.

This replacement set will provide stronger landing gear that won’t sag over time, and are somewhat adjustable if necessary to obtain proper alignment. Even with zero previous experience in using white metal parts, this set will provide an upgrade that most modelers will have no problem installing. Scale Aircraft Conversions does not use lead in their white metal mix, so the builder does not have to be concerned with that perceived hazard.

There are no supplied… more

Package Front

Russian Battleship Tsesarevich 1917 Armament

Published:
Company: Master Model

Tsesarevich (Russian: Цесаревич) was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, built in France at the end of the 19th century. The ship's design formed the basis of the Russian-built Borodino-class battleships. After repairs were made following the Russian-Japanese war, most of the small-caliber guns (47mm and 37mm) were removed. Tsesarevich was not very active during the early part of World War I and her sailors joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet in early 1917.

This Master Model set provides you with 20 barrels: Four machined aluminum 305mm/40 (12”) barrels; twelve machined brass 152mm/45 (6”) barrels; two 47mm (1.85”) Hotchkiss Gun barrels; and two 37mm (1.5”) Hotchkiss gun barrels and a single page instruction sheet. As you can see in the… more

Packaging

Spitfire Mk. V Gun Barrels

Published:
Company: Quickboost

QuickBoost provides you with four 20mm Hispano Mk. II cannon barrels with the smooth barrel fairing removed and replaced with a vented fairing to cover the recoil spring. Please note that there was quite a bit of variety in the exposed barrel of the 20mm Hispano Mk. II cannon depending on what type of wing it was installed in. The Spitfire Mk Vc and Mk Ve wing had different style fairings. The Hurricane, Typhoon, and Mosquito installations and fairings were also quite different.

Of note is the re-sealable packaging that QuickBoost uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new QuickBoost replacements. These QuickBoost parts are specific… more

Packaging

P-51D Mustang Control Surfaces

Published:
Company: Aires Hobby Models

Wanting to make your P-51D just a bit different by showing the elevators in action? Aires has come to the rescue with a beautiful set to replace the horizontal tail surfaces for the North American P-51D Mustang. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new Aires replacements. These Aires parts are specific replacements for the kit parts found in the Tamiya series of P-51D kits.

Aires has molded the stabilizer and elevator perfectly in light grey resin with no apparent bubbles. The Aires stabilizer and elevator are supplied on a single resin sprue with thin resin attachments to the parts that should minimize any cleanup.

Although most paints will adhere to resin alone, I would recommend that you wash the parts to… more

Product packaging

Polikarpov I-16 Control Surfaces

Published:
Company: Aires Hobby Models

Looking at all those photos of Polikarpov I-16s sitting on the grass and noting that the elevators are both drooping? Aires has come to the rescue with a beautiful set to replace the horizontal tail surfaces for the Polikarpov I-16. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new Aires replacements. These Aires parts are specific replacements for the kit parts found in the Eduard series of I-16 kits.

Aires has molded the stabilizer and elevator perfectly in light grey resin with no apparent bubbles. The Aires stabilizer and elevator are supplied on a single resin sprue with thin resin attachments to the parts that should minimize any cleanup.

Although most paints will adhere to resin alone, I would recommend that you… more

Product package

I-16 Gun Barrels and Pitot Tube

Published:
Company: Quickboost

Quickboost provides one pitot tube and two ShKAS 7.62mm gun barrels. Of note is the re-sealable packaging that Quickboost uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new Quickboost replacements.

Quickboost has molded the pitot tube and gun barrels perfectly in light grey resin with no apparent bubbles. The Quickboost pitot tube and gun barrels have no mold seams to sand off on these tiny parts, and superior detail of actually hollowing the barrel as opposed to a flat face to drill out.

Be very careful removing the parts from the resin block as the pitot tube is small and fragile. Although most paints will adhere to resin alone, I… more

Front Cover

Windsock Centenary Datafile 169 ‘Hawa’! (Vol. 2)

Published:
Book Author(s): Ray Rimell, Harry Woodman
Company: Albatros Productions, Ltd.

Ray Rimell’s follow up to ‘Hawa’! Volume 1 dives deeper into the Hannover CL. II and its variants. The cover features a Stan Stokes painting of a Hannover in action over the front lines. Ronny Bar contributes nine color side profiles, all up to his normal high standards. Mick Davis grabs the pullout centerfold with general arrangement line drawings of the Hannover CL.IIIa and the Hannover CL. III (Merc.). For those of you that still dabble in that odd 1/72 scale, Mick Davis also provides you with drawings of the same two aircraft. I counted seven color photos of the 180-hp Opel (Argus) motor located at the Science Museum in London. There are also an additional 54 black and white photos and over 150 drawings of the airplane components. Ian Stair provides a 1/48 general arrangement… more

Front cover

Ki-61 and Ki-100 Aces

Published:
Book Author(s): Nicholas Millman
Company: Osprey Publishing

This is at least Nicholas Millman’s third title with Ronnie Olsthoorn illustrating for Osprey Publishing. Aircraft of the Aces 100 – Ki-44 ‘Tojo’ Aces of World War 2 was published in 2011 and Aircraft of the Aces 103 – Ki-27 ‘Nate Aces was published in 2013. Nicholas Millman is one of Britain’s leading researchers of Japanese military aviation. In addition to publishing articles in specialist journals, his own range of reference materials and supporting the research of other authors, he runs a website dedicated to the subject which attracts visitors from 194 countries.

This 96 page book contains 36 color profiles illustrated by Ronnie Olsthoorn along with a paragraph description located in the Appendix. An additional six 1/72 scale drawings are included to highlight the… more