Ron Bell
Reviews By Author
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Sea Vixen FAW 2Published:
The Vixen was originally developed for the RAF, but was turned down in favor of the Javelin for a missile-armed interceptor. The Fleet Air Arm picked it up and it was tailored to their needs, replacing the Sea Venom. The later versions, the FAW 2 (FAW=Fighter, All Weather) had saddle tanks added to the two booms to increase fuel capacity and thus range as well as better electronics. At the time, it was the heaviest aircraft ever operated by the FAA and was twice the size of the Venom it replaced. Due to all that weight, it only managed to be about 75 mph faster than the Venom, but it did carry the Red Top missile for air-to-air combat, which the Venom could not, as well as the Bull Pup air-to-ground missile. It served with the FAA from 1959 'til 1974. The Cyber Hobby kit has… more |
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Type 2 Ka-Mi Tank w/floating pontoonPublished:
This one falls in the "that's an odd duck" category. This was a Japanese attempt – and a successful one, at that – to create a truly amphibious tank. The IJN developed the Type 2 Ka-Mi tank for invading Pacific islands that did not have adequate port facilities to handle regular tanks. The tank had removable pontoons fore and aft for flotation and to avoid shipping any water; they added a trunk for the air intake and a tower over the commander's turret hatch. It could do around 10 km/hr in the water, being driven by two propellers at the rear, and had a range of 150 km. These were probably test results in a bay or on a lake. I could find no information on its performance on the open seas, so I'd take that range and speed with a grain of salt. The vehicle was never used operationally in… more |
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HMS Warspite, 1915 – complete buildPublished:
A while back, I did an in-the-box review of this kit (click on the link above) that provided the basic info on what's in the box, etc., but I've now completed the model and thought I'd share that information as well. Out of the box, this looks like a really nice kit and it falls into two categories that interest me, World War I and British ships, so I wanted to build it as well as I could. In addition, I wanted to try out one of those wooden veneer decks that so enhance the appearance of a finished model, and while a kit of this quality can make an impressive model right out of the box, I wanted to add the basic PE railings to finish it off. Conveniently, I was able to obtain both the PE railings and wood veneer deck from the company Artwox. I started with the hull. It… more |
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F9F-2 PantherPublished:
I won't go into the background of the F9F Panther, mainly because I don't know a lot about it and I know there are those out there who, knowing every nut, bolt and hydraulic coupling, would let me know in no uncertain terms if I were to err. Instead, I'll confine myself to the kit itself. Round 2 Models is a collectibles company located in South Bend, Indiana, that has acquired, among other lines, plastic kits from AMT, MPC, and Polar Lights, and they re-release selected out-of-production subjects from these companies' lines. Interestingly, they put out their releases in the old companies' packaging with no indication that it's from Round 2. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was 20-30 years ago. The only clue you get is a Round 2 flyer/catalogue that is included in the box… more |
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Da Vinci's Flying MachinePublished:
The mind of Leonardo DaVinci must have been an interesting place. There's an entire museum in Milan full of his art work, architectural and biological drawings, and working models made from his original plans for a wide variety of machines, and Academy has released a series of spring-driven working models based on these. The subject of this review, his Flying Machine, contains a series of gears that drive two bird-like wings up and down. Of course, it doesn't actually fly, but it was an attempt to understand how birds do. The kit consists of two sprues of parts, one black and the other tan-textured to look like wood. The plastic is a little soft, but that is to facilitate the snap/friction assembly system. It kind of reminded me of the premiums you use to get in cereal boxes.… more |
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HMS Warspite, 1915Published:
The HMS Warspite was one of the Queen Elizabeth class dreadnaughts launched during the First World War. These were the state of the art battleships of the time and the general soundness of their design shows in the fact that the last of them was not disposed of until the 1950's! They went through many refits that changed their appearance quite a bit over the years. The WWII Warspite has been modeled several times in several scales, most recently in the newly popular 1/350, but never in her WWI fit. The Trumpeter kit is of her appearance when she was launched, thus she joins a very small group of injection kits of WWI ships and I believe the only one as she was during that war. As I build ship models very slowly, this will be a two-part review. This first will be an in the box review… more |
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Replacement British Naval Gunbarrels, 16", 6", and 4.7"Published:
Master Models is a company in Poland that must employ elves, incredibly small tool and die makers, and/or people with exceptional eyesight. They make replacement gun barrels for aircraft and ship models out of brass, and some of these are incredibly small and all are exquisitely detailed. The subjects of this review were selected because they would enable a modeler to replace all the main weapon gun barrels on either a 1/700 HMS Nelson or Rodney. The 16" were only used on these ships, but the 6" and 4.7" could also be used on other Royal Navy ships with these weapons. For example, since 16 4.7" barrels come in a packet, you could replace… more |
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Four Stroke EnginePublished:
Airfix is releasing all sorts of interesting/strange subjects in their current burst of productivity and this is one of them. It's an old kit that originally dates from 1972, at one point was motorized, and is now billed as part of their Museum Collection. I selected it thinking it would be a fun diversion from my more "intense" projects. Wrong. This is not a simple build. You need to pay attention to what's going on and what goes where and, because it's a cutaway, what needs to be painted before you do anything. There are leftover parts when you're done that I can only assume were once part of the motorization, and some of the rest of the parts are similar to each other, so you need to pay attention to parts' numbers. Be careful during assembly, as some parts need to go together in a… more |
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HMS Sheffield Type 43 Destroyer Batch 1Published:
This is a re-boxing of Dragon kit #7071 that has already been reviewed by Rod Lees. For photos of the kits parts, you can find that review in the Archives section. I will confine myself to sharing my impressions of this kit. First off, you have to decide what ship you are building, as there are parts for around four different ships and some surgery is required on some kit parts in some instances. None of this is difficult, but you have to decide right from the git go, as the first step in assembly requires a decision. After that, you need to decide whether you're going to do it full hull or waterline. I like to place my ships in their natural environment, so I went for the waterline. Which was just as well, as a quick check of how the lower hull fit led me to believe that there… more |
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British Matador TruckPublished:
Zvezda is one of the myriad of injection molding companies that emerged in Eastern Europe after the Soviet block fell apart. At first, they used old, re-cycled molds from other companies such as Frog, etc, but now they are doing their own molding and, at least in this instance, doing it very well. A couple of years ago, Italeri introduced a line of simplified 1/72 scale kits to be used in a war game that they designed. Now, included in this box is a sample card used in the game. While in Cyrillic and, at least to me, un-readable, it appears to show the unit's movement abilities and limitations. It would be interesting to see the entire game. The models for Zvezda's game are in 1/100 scale and are of the no-glue variety. They are not really snap fit, but rather pressure fit, as… more |