Blue Angel Cougars

Published: April 5, 2015
Company: Furball Aero-Design

Furball Aero Design is a new decal company. They have teamed with Detail & Scale who I have admired and trusted for many years, to turn out interesting and correct decals and marking schemes for 1/48 modern US aircraft. They also have vinyl mask sets for those kits.

This decal sheet consists of all of the markings you would need to do two Blue Angels aircraft, either two TF-9s or two F9Fs, or one of each.

The Blue Angels flew the Cougar from 1954 to 1957, when it was replaced with the F11F Tiger.

The decals are printed by Cartograf of Italy. I put Cartograf as the industry standard for quality decals. My basis for this is toughness of the decal film and the fact that it only takes about 15 seconds in the water for even the largest decal to come loose from… more

Mignet HM14 Pou du Ciel (Flying Flea)

Published: April 2, 2015
Company: Brengun

Brengun is a fairly new company in Brno, Czechoslovakia. They make resin and photoetch kits in various scales. They have some VERY interesting kits and PE detail sets. I recently reviewed their 1/72 shopping cart. It’s got to be part of a street diorama, as soon as I find a 1/72 young lady to go with it.

The Aircraft

In the late 1920s - early 1930s France was very much taken with aviation. If it flew, a lot of people were fans. Henri Mignet decided that he wanted to design and build an airplane that everyone could fly and almost anyone could afford to own. The concept was a “Model T of the Air”. Because the ubiquitous Ford Model T was called “Pou de la Route”, which translated to “Louse of the Road”, his aircraft became the Pou du Ciel, or “Louse of the Air”. The… more

Dassault Mirage IV - Refueling Probe Boom

Published: March 25, 2015
Company: Master Model

A while back (2009 if you want to know) I built a Heller Mirage IVP with the Pavla recce pod. Last week I got a new refueling probe for this kit.

The new probe from Master Model is a single piece of turned aluminum, exactly the same length as the Heller probe. All I had to do was remove the plastic probe from the nose of the Mirage IV, drill a larger hole where the probe goes, paint the new part and install the part with some CA to hold it.

As it turns out, there was one more step to this project. The Master Model part is a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the kit part. But it was the work of only a few minutes to trim the kit nose taper to fit. A little more paint to match, and it was done.

Overall Evaluation

Highly recommended. The part fits… more

Pitot and Refueling Probe for the Airfix Buccaneer

Published: March 18, 2015
Company: Master Model

Master Model produces some fine metal components for aircraft kits. The metal pitots are really super, especially after you’ve broken the plastic one provided in the kit. In this case I found the pitot had totally broken off the Buccaneer. I had to replace it with a part from a new kit.

The pitot was a direct replacement.

The instructions give a very good idea of what needs to be done and how to do it. I’m very glad that at one point I bought a set of metric drills, so I have a .5mm drill bit. I used a pin vise. I had to work a bit to get the pin vise to go small enough to hold that small drill.

I cut the pitot off the mounting part and used a #11 blade to make a little depression so the drill bit didn’t slip. The drilling went pretty well, although it was a… more

Victor B.2 Landing Gear (GW)

Published: March 11, 2015
Company: Scale Aircraft Conversions

A bit of explanation here. I try to do full-build reviews with photos taken through most of the process. When I hooked my memory card into the USB port on my computer, it said, “there are no files”. And there weren’t. It had erased my photos, so all my pictures are GONE. It did the same to another memory card. I am quite unhappy.

On with the review.

Scale Aircraft Conversions does white metal landing gear for a lot of aircraft kits. Some are necessary because the kit parts aren’t correct. Some you need because the plastic kit parts aren’t strong enough to hold the model. And then there’s this case. I finished the Victor kit, and it was a tail sitter. OK, I glued it to a piece of foamcore board, and the glue held the nose down. When the opportunity came to get the SAC… more

E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post Limited Edition

Published: February 1, 2015
Company: Hasegawa

The Aircraft

The E-4B is obviously a modified Boeing 747, or VC-25. It started out as a 747-200, but has had equipment added to make it an airborne command post. There was an E-4A, but these have been modified to B standard. The big visual difference between an A and a B is the fairly large hump on the top near the front. This houses the SHF SATCOM antenna.

The E-4B has a crew of 48 to 112, depending on mission needs. It can stay aloft for a week if necessary, the limiting factor being engine lubricants. In case of national emergency, the President, the cabinet, and whoever else is deemed necessary would be aboard.

The E-4B has not been upgraded to a glass cockpit, as the analog instruments are less susceptible to EMP (electromagnetic pulse) damage from a… more

T-6 Texan

Published: January 18, 2015
Company: Platz

The North American T-6 Texan was the premier advanced trainer through World War II and later. It was also used as a FAC (Forward Air Control) aircraft in Korea and Vietnam. The AT-6 was also known as the SNJ by the US Navy and the Harvard by the RAF. 61 countries have used some variant of the Texan. If you can’t find markings that interest you, just keep looking.

My personal attachment to the T-6 comes from my friend Tom Kelly, who gave me a ride in his T-6G. We went to Oshkosh for the Air Rendezvouz in 1986. You get a really respectful greeting when you arrive in a warbird, even if you’re only in the back seat.

The Model

You get two T-6s in the box, plus enough JASDF markings to do 7 JASDF Texans, 4 yellow and 3 silver. You get 4 canopies, one each for the T-… more

RAF Strategic Bomber Victor B.2

Published: January 17, 2015
Company: Great Wall Hobby

Britain had the V Bombers, Valiant, Victor and Vulcan, from the 1950s through the 1980s. They were large bombers designed to carry the large nuclear weapons of the 50s, and they served the RAF well, with the Victor and Vulcan serving as aerial tankers and the last Vulcan tanker retiring in 1984.

This model is of the Victor B.2 bomber version of the aircraft. The bomber was never used in combat; the Valiant bombed Suez in 1956 and the Vulcan bombed the Falklands in 1982. Victor tankers participated in the “Black Buck” missions in the Falklands, with 11 Victor K.2s needed to get one Vulcan to the target, Ascension Island, and return, a round trip of 6,800 miles.

The Victors were designed to carry a stand-off nuclear missile called Blue Steel. This was to be replaced by… more

Shopping Cart

Published: December 31, 2014
Company: Hauler

There’s not a lot of military history for this kit. It’s a pretty standard European-style shopping cart. I have pushed a bunch of these around stores in Italy when I was TDY at Vincenza. From my experience working at Kroger’s I know that the American version has a different wheel setup and a shelf below the main basket.

This kit is a marvelously done piece of photoetch. Everything except the push bar, which is done in resin, is on one fret. The basket is one piece with the legs attached. The wheels and axle supports are separate pieces, and there’s a chain which attaches to the push bar. I remember that this chain hooks into a dispenser outside the store, and you put a coin in the dispenser to get your cart. When you’re done, return the cart, and you get your coin back. That’s… more

MiG-15 Weekend

Published: December 27, 2014
Company: Eduard

Way back when, I built the Airfix 1/72 MiG-15. I was more than happy to get Eduard’s new Weekend MiG-15, because it’s a far superior kit. So this review is going to tell you the wonderful things about this kit. But because it’s a review, there will be a couple of things that could use improvement.

Since it’s a weekend kit, there is no photo etch or additional detail parts. On the other hand, the seat, cockpit and canopy are all super examples of what can be done in a 21st Century kit. I also cheated some and painted the external parts with Testors Metalizer Aluminum. As it turned out, I could have saved the trouble, because most of it rubbed off during handling.

The cockpit consists of the seat (2 parts) a control stick, the floor, front and rear bulkheads, the… more