PBJ-1H/J Mitchell

Published: September 19, 2021
Company: Minicraft Model Kits

The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box – great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are thirty-eight light grey plastic parts and two clear sprues, one being from the Minicraft C-47/DC-3 kit that uses only the Astrodome part. The small decal sheet (1¼” by 4½”) manages to include three schemes, one Navy (the only named aircraft) and two Marine.

As I found the PBJ with the radar nose interesting, I decided to make that one. With a little research I found a right rear-quarter picture of the aircraft in the Osprey Combat Aircraft #40 “PBJ Mitchell Units of the Pacific War” book on page 82. This picture and others in this book show that many of the PBJ’s had no fifty cal. package guns on the fuselage sides, so one of the first jobs was the removal of these guns… more

F-14 Tomcat - Egg Plane

Published: January 15, 2010
Company: Hasegawa

I was happy to see Hasegawa reissue these kits as I have several of the "Eggplanes" but not the F-14. The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are twenty-eight Gray plastic parts and one crystal clear canopy for the F-14 Tomcat and a colorful decal sheet with two schemes. The canopy is loose in the box allowing it to be scratched up a bit, but a little polishing and a dip in Future took care of that problem. Considering this is a humorous kit I was surprised to see a four-piece instrument panel on the decal sheet. There is a plastic nose weight included but I did add a few grams of extra weight to the nose of the F-14 to be on the safe side.

Let's proceed with the build. As with the F-15 kit the upper fuselage is a… more

Space Shuttle Egg Plane

Published: January 1, 2009
Company: Hasegawa

I was happy to see Hasegawa reissue these kits as I have several of the "Eggplanes" but not some of the re-releases. The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are thirteen White, Eleven Black plastic parts and one crystal clear windshield and with a colorful decal sheet with the names of three different shuttles. The canopy is loose in the box allowing it to be scratched up a bit, but a little polishing and a dip in Future took care of that problem. Some of the parts were also scratched but nothing a little polishing and painting would take care of. One thing about these re-releases is that Hasegawa have eliminated the bases that were in the original issue. This kit no longer has the clear Blue half earth base and the wire… more