Jim Pearsall
Reviews By Author
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Avia B.534 Detail SetPublished:
Eduard recently released a Quattro kit of the Avia B.534, a Czech biplane which participated in World War 2. I got to review the kit, and now I’m doing a second build utilizing Eduard’s PE upgrade for the Avia. The KitYou get a single PE fret with enough add-ons to do a single aircraft. There is a lagniappe here, as there are 4 instrument panels, so you can do another 3 with them. The fuselage parts are side panels for the cockpit, a set of seat and shoulder belts, a control stick, front and rear radiator grills, and a step. There is also a “ring & cross” gun sight, a tail wheel add-on for the Bulgarian version and a tail wheel protector for the tow tug version. Unfortunately the last 3 items weren’t for the version I built. For the wings you get… more |
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Avia B.534 Quattro ComboPublished:
The AircraftWhen the first B.534 flew in 1934, the aircraft was well ahead of its contemporaries in other air forces. The British were using Hawker Furies, the US had Curtiss Hawks and the Russians had the I-15. With the German takeover of much of Czechoslovakia in 1939, many of these planes were taken over by the Luftwaffe. The B.534’s combat record is sparse, although some flown by Bulgaria did attempt to intercept the Ploesti raid, and a 534 flown by a pilot of the Slovak National Uprising shot down a Hungarian Ju-52 in October of 1944, the last recorded victory by a biplane. The KitYou get four of everything except decals. The 4 sprues are not exactly identical, being called B+C, B+D, B+E and B+G. There are plenty of parts, and many of the parts on the… more |
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Hand TruckPublished:
This kit is one of those spiffy little diorama add-ons that you sometimes would like to add, but nobody makes it. Well, Brengun comes to the rescue here. I have had some experience with one of these “vehicles”, when I worked in receiving for Sears. And the war story follows: I was moving a refrigerator out to the floor for display. It wasn’t quite balanced because of the floor, and it started to stand up. As I usually did, I stuck my foot out against the axle to push it back into travel position. It didn’t stop, and broke my big toe. Fortunately for me, my Mom worked as an emergency room nurse, so she took care of me at home. The fix was to tape part of a tongue depressor between the big toe and the second toe. This acted as a splint. Then she laughed at me for… more |
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Carrier Deck Star Tie DownsPublished:
This is my second review of Brengun Carrier tie downs. The first was the “cross” style. This is the newer, more modern star type. These items are used as the anchor for tying aircraft or anything else that needs to not move, to the deck. A hook at one end of the tie down is put around one of the star legs and the other end is adjusted to hold the aircraft in place. On the WW2 wooden deck carriers, the tie down anchor was a long piece which ran from one side of the deck to the other, replacing one of the boards in the wooden deck. After the Navy went to steel decks and angle deck carriers, they used a cross type anchor. Today’s supercarriers use the star type anchor. They can be either yellow or white, depending on what year you’re doing the model. I kind of… more |
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Spitfires, Naši se vracejíPublished:
This is another issue of Eduard’s marvelous 1/144 Spitfire IXe kit. This time you get FOUR Spitfires in the box, with eight possible markings. I was curious about what the Czech language phrase means. I tried several translation sites, but none of them worked. I finally went to Eduard’s web site and contacted them, asking what Naši se vracejí means. I got an almost immediate answer from Libor Havranek of Eduard support. It means “The boys are back”. Cool. Thanks very much for the info. Since all 8 of the schemes offered in this kit, and they’re all late WW2 or post war, it makes sense. They’re all Czech nationals who flew Spitfires, either for the RAF or the Czech AF. And Eduard pays homage them. The KitYou get 4… more |
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Carrier Deck Cross Tie DownsPublished:
Brengun has come out with a spiffy idea for making your US Navy 1/144 carrier-based aircraft base look even better. It’s a set of PE tie down anchors for the carrier deck. The tie downs in this set are the “older” cross style. The newer ones, on newer ships are star type. The original tie down anchors on wooden deck carriers looked kind of like a grating which ran from one side of the deck to the other. I found pictures of these with B-25s tied down on the Hornet for the Doolittle Raid. When the Navy went to angle deck carriers, they had a steel deck. The tie downs were the cross type. They were painted black, and later yellow. There’s a picture below of me standing on the deck of the USS America in 1996, on the ship’s last cruise. The tie downs are cross type, painted… more |
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Hellcat Fuel TankPublished:
This little accessory is an add-on for the older 1/144 Hellcat kits. It contains two resin fuel tanks, plus a PE fret with the extra mounting hardware you don’t find on kits from the 20th Century. I started out the project with the Platz 1/144 Hellcat. But after I assembled the Platz fuel tank, I decided that it was pretty close in appearance to the Brengun, so I went to a less detailed kit. In this case, I had a choice between the Revell F6F5 and the AHM F6F5. I chose the AHM kit for no other reason than it was the easiest to find in my stash. I built the kit, painted it and applied decals before installing the fuel tank. I also painted the tank as I built the kit. I left the prop and landing gear off the plane until the tank was installed. The tank mounted… more |
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De Havilland Comet 4BPublished:
The Comet was the basis of the rebirth of the British civil aircraft industry after World War II. Development began before the war ended, but the first comet didn’t fly until 1949. The Comet 1 had a serious problem, however. About a year after the first commercial flights began in 1952, Comets began breaking up in the air. The problem was traced to the repeated pressurization and depressurization of the fuselage, which caused metal fatigue. The square windows provided a focal point for the stress, and the fuselage would rupture at the window corner. The eventual fix was to make the windows oval, with no corners. The Comet 4 was the model with this fix. The last Comet flight was in 1997. The Nimrod, a reconnaissance and ASW version of the Comet remained in RAF service until 2011 … more |
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Spitfire Landing GearPublished:
This is another of SAC’s marvelous landing gear replacements for 1/144 scale aircraft. One of the worst things to fix on a finished aircraft is the broken landing gear which occurs from either a move or less than careful handling, usually by a friend of spouse. I was at a display when a spectator started to pick up one of Brian Baker’s planes. I tried to stop him, but he said “I know what I’m doing!!” and then proceeded to remove the antenna, landing gear and rigging in one grab. The KitYou get two sets of nicely cast metal gear legs. This is cool, because Eduard has two Spitfires in their 1/144 kits. Well, there IS a single kit, but I haven’t seen that one yet. I show in the photos below that the SAC parts match the Eduard parts pretty closely. In 1/144, it’… more |
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MD-3 Carrier Fire TractorPublished:
Here’s another addition to that 1/144 carrier deck diorama/vignette you’ve wanted to do. This is the fire fighter version of the MD-3 Carrier Tow Tractor. The KitYou get two of everything except decals. And since you’re probably not going to do the same vehicle twice, that’s OK. Pre-AssemblyYou have to cut the tractor body and the fire-fighting gear off of the pour blocks. Fortunately, Brengun engineered this nicely, so the cut is squarely across the bottom of the parts, so even if you make a minor error, it’s not readily visible. I know this. The wheels came off the pour block quite easily. I used a #10 blade, which is curved and larger, making the cuts clean and fairly easy. The parts are cleanly molded and don’t have those bubbles or voids which… more |