Chinese FC-1 Fierce Dragon/Pakistani JF-17 Thunder

Published: February 6, 2016
Company: Trumpeter

The history of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 in the hands of the People's Republic of China (J-7 in the PLAAF; F-7 for export) is a long and convoluted one, which came to a close with the deliveries of the final production examples to export customer nations in 2013. Almost from the beginning, the Chinese wanted to either improve the design into something more modern, or outright replace it with… more

Buccaneer S.2B Mask Set

Published: January 17, 2012
Company: Eduard

I've had an Airfix Buccaneer in my to-build pile for about ten years since I bought it in a flea market in Florida. I'd never used die-cut masking sets (or liquid mask) before, so I took up this product as something of a challenge.

The product is relatively easy to use...more so on the canopy and windshield than on the landing gear. Still, you need liquid masking agent to complete the… more

C-45 Expeditor Model 18

Published: August 29, 2011
Company: Squadron Products

Beechcraft has built many multi-engined airplanes over its long and successful history, but when anybody in aviation mentions a "Twin Beech", they don't mean a Baron, a Duke, or even a Super King Air – they mean a Model 18. Designed at the end of the 1930s as a competitor to Lockheed's Electra 10, it soon eclipsed that type in production with demand for light transports and aircrew trainers… more

Daleks in Manhattan - a Doctor Who Gift Set

Published: August 27, 2011
Company: Airfix

When this model set became available in the Reviewer Corps back in March 2009, I got all excited, and I thought I had reason to be. This seemed to be a project made for me, as a long time ago I was a Doctor Who fan and knew the Daleks probably better than your average IPMS/USA dude. But now, I look back at this project and wish I had never taken it. Frankly, I was going to get cute and throw… more

Soviet Fighter LAGG-3

Published: August 27, 2011
Company: Zvezda

The Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LAGG-3 was an important fighter aircraft for the Soviet Air Force at the time of the German "Barbarossa" invasion in 1941, and a technological parallel to the British Hawker Hurricane, French Dewoitine D.520, and the American Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk of the time. With a mostly wooden construction and a relatively powerful engine and adequate firepower, it held the… more

Hawker Hector

Published: November 3, 2010
Company: AModel

The fit on this model had me working very hard from every direction. For example, on the tailplane, there was a locator tab that didn’t seem to have a matching hole. The result was that I accidentally mounted the horizontal stabilizer inverted. I had to carefully prize it off and clean the parts before remounting it and adding the vertical stabilizer and tail struts.

I applied most of… more

HISPANO Spitfire Mk.V 20mm Cannons

Published: October 17, 2010
Company: Master Model

I'll admit to being a little confused when I requested this assignment. I was expecting something else. Still, these are very welcome components as I have two 1/72nd scale Spitfire Mk.V’s in my “to-build” pile.

The Spitfire was among the earliest production fighter aircraft to adopt a 20mm cannon as armament; with the “B” arrangement for the cannon being introduced in the Mk.I and Mk.… more

Hispano 20mm Cannons in Fairings

Published: September 30, 2010
Company: Master Model

I admit to being a little confused when I requested this assignment; I was expecting something else. Still, these are very welcome components as I have two 1/72 scale Spitfire Mark Vs in my “to-build” pile.

The Spitfire was among the earliest production fighter aircraft to adopt 20mm cannon as armament, and the “B” arrangement for the cannon was introduced in the Mark I and Mark II… more