Rod Lees
Reviews By Author
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F-102 Cockpit and Landing Gear WellsPublished:
Continuing the build of F-102’s: Having just built the Encore F-102A, I had offered my services to build one of my stash Revell/Monogram F-102A kits around these Aires items. They are simple upgrades, with major appearance improvements. Aires continues to set an almost unbeatable standard for detail. Their fit has improved greatly over the years, and once complete, you have a work of art at reasonable cost. First, the wheel wells. The main gear well requires you to remove part of the existing interior hump from the upper wing surface, locating pins for the kit wheel well bulkheads, and sand down the back of the beautifully-done one-piece main wheel well supplied by Aires. This done, the well slipped into place and was glued down without problems. The wing halves were then glued… more |
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F-5E Alconbury GomersPublished:
Once again, aircraft from “My era”, the early 1980’s, are starting to appear on decal sheets. RAF Alconbury was a busy place; Not only for the RF-4C’s that were stationed there, but the U-2R (TR-1 at the time) was a common sight. And in between all that activity, the dart-shaped F-5E’s of the 527th Aggressor squadron claimed AR as home. They were frequently deployed to other locations such as Deccimommano, Italy, and USAFE bases in Germany and Spain to practice their trade on our local USAFE fighter pilots. These sheets from Twobobs are excellent historical references. If you are independently wealthy enough to own several of the new F-5’s from AFV, you could easily make an entire squadron of Warsaw-pact look-alikes. I’m certain these decals will work with the… more |
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BMP-3 MICV Early VersionPublished:
Thanks first to Stevens International for providing this kit. Once again, we are blessed with excellent review opportunities through their gracious provision! I am an occasional armor modeler. Having built BMP 1 and 2 versions from DML many years ago, I was interested in what Trumpeter have provided. Let's move on to the build and see… When you open the box you are greeted by 13 parts trees (sprues to some), 12 in tan and one clear for the lights and laser sighting windows. Everything is packed in separate bags… no lost parts or broken bits! One photo-etch fret for details, including a grill to go over the kit engine intake, and bags of track parts. We’re talking BAGS. Three bag sets of pad/growser bar assemblies, and 2 trees of “U” shaped parts for the wheel alignment… more |
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F-16I Sufa Cockpit SetPublished:
This upgrade provides excellent cast cockpit tubs, instrument coamings, and ACES II ejection seats. Included are side controllers; the control sticks are molded into the side panels. Score high there; no disappearing act on the joystick or those throttle levers while trying to attach them to the panels. Detail is unmatched on the resin. The photoetch fret contains all the myriad little bits designed to disappear or be invisible except to specialized cameras or those with 20/05 vision. Where this upgrade falls behind is the instrument panels; they require you to sandwich film with a photo-etch instrument panel, and paint the back of the films white to simulate instruments. In my case, this was not so good; the white does not show up well, and the level of detail is not up to par… more |
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English Electric Lightning Ejection seat, Exhausts, and Wheel WellsPublished:
The first thing: Thanks once again to AIRES for providing IPMS/USA with these remarkable detail items! Your support is most welcome… we truly appreciate it! I first saw a Lightning at RAF Mildenhall’s Air Fete 1984. I had been on station for less than a month, and was in modelers’s heaven, Canon AE-1 in hand. USAFE was a true force with fighters everywhere, and the RAF was present in a big way at this, the show of shows. The Hurricane, “Last of the Many”, F-4’s with the new wraparound Euro 2 Paint scheme,… And there, on the display line, was a Lightning. The original “Scalded cat out of the woods” fighter, which could outclimb an F-15 for at least a while after a brakes-on takeoff. Words fail how cool it was… and today I don’t think I truly appreciated how good… more |
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F-102A Delta DaggerPublished:
Back in the late 1980’s, I was stationed at Sembach in Germany. Having left England behind in 1986 due to reassignment, the word on aircraft modeling was mostly about what Revell and Italeri were up to. Everything in the shops was Revell or R/C related, and my only link to what was happening in the rest of the static scale world involved the Squadron shop flyers. A friend from Miami sent me a letter saying “sign up for the “Golden Eagle Society” newsletter… the word here is there are going to be 1/48 PBY’s, F-89’s and F-102’s from a major manufacturer…” I signed up, saw the newsletter, and was thinking to myself, “Yeah, right”. But at the same time I had high hopes; we had, in the space of a few years since 1982, seen the F-106 from Monogram, along with the consummate A-10, A-37, and… more |