When Hasegawa finally followed up their excellent 1:48 A-4 series with a TA-4J, many modelers were thrilled, including me. Of course shortly after its release, aftermarket companies soon had various releases to detail the kit even further.

Canopy masking is always time consuming and among aircraft modelers is one of the least favorite tasks to complete a model. Precut masks have been around for a while, but it wasn’t until the introduction of Kuboki tape that precut masks really matured. Eduard has been doing masks for some time now, and EX273 works perfectly with Hasegawa’s TA-4J.

When Hasegawa finally followed up their excellent 1:48 A-4 series with a TA-4J, many modelers were thrilled, including me. Of course shortly after its release, aftermarket companies soon had various releases to detail the kit even further. Eduard produced several new photo-etched sets for the TA-4J, a couple of which are applicable to other A-4 variants.

First we will look at the airbrake set. A single fret of etch is included along with one page of instructions in the usual Eduard style. The final assemblies completely replace the kits flaps, plus provide parts for the upper spoilers seen on the TA-4J, TA-4F, A-4F, and A-4M. Also one advantage the etched parts have is there is no ejector pin marks as seen on the kit parts.

The Trumpeter F-100 series is a welcome addition to plastic modeling and the F-100 F two-seater fills a big hole for the serious model builder. Eduard is a well-known company with a reputation for providing very nice detail sets for many of today’s new model kits. Eduard has now produced several photoetch details sets for the F-100 F such as seatbelts, cockpit interior, undercarriage and exterior.

The seatbelt set, #49540, contains all of the seatbelts, buckles and pads for both the front and rear seats as well as the foot rests for the ejection seats. The belts are pre-painted in the appropriate colors, all you have to do is apply a drop of super glue and put the part in place. It is a slow and tedious process but the finished kit parts look fantastic.

Quickboost has continued to issue sets that make building the Hasegawa A-1 Skyraider easier and with better details. This time around Quickboost presents a set with completely assembled pylons, the centerline, the fuel tanks (2) and the wing pylons (12). The parts are cast in the usual fine grain, gray resin with no defects and very little clean up.

With the plastic kit the wing pylons are assembled from two parts and with the fuel tanks and centerline pylons you’ll have to glue on the sway brackets. The plastic parts have seam lines that have to be removed, possible glue smears to contend with and the fuel tank pylons have punch out marks that have to be removed.

Description:

1 pair of intake FOD covers designed for the Academy MiG-29A. And will also work on the Academy MiG-29UB (dual controlled two place trainer).

Inspection:

Packaging is the typical orange-labeled Quickboost clear envelope along with a piece of card stock and a simple instruction note sheet.