The German 20-mm anti-aircraft gun with crew Flak 38 is part of Zvezda’s “Art of Tactics” war-gaming series. You get 20 dark gray flexible plastic pieces with minimal flash; you also get a game card with games stats for the “Art of Tactics” game. The instructions are very well illustrated with four sequences of assembly; even though there is no number sequence you should have no problem figuring out what goes where. The detail is exceptional and the best I’ve seen in this scale for the Flak 38. The two crew figures are up to Zvezda’s usual high standard and have little flash. The kit is designed for snap assembly and can easily be assembled with no glue.

Part 1

For years I have had the desire to build a U.S. Coast Guard MH-60J, but just couldn’t convince myself to buy all of the resin conversion parts needed or, God forbid, do some real modeling and do some scratch building. A very good friend of mine, Dave Riley, was a rescue swimmer for the Coast Guard at the Coast Guard Aviation Center in Mobile, before a mysterious bacterial infection turned him into a quad amputee. He took me through the aviation facility and I got to crawl all over the MH-60’s with my camera blazing away. I now knew I had to model one of these unique helicopters with its bright blue interior and red bags and baskets filling every bit of the interior. Along comes Skunk Model Workshop with an HH-60J. The fact that it is a re-boxed Italeri HH-60 with some new trees thrown in makes no difference; it’s all there. Well, almost.

The Aircraft

The Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden (Violet Lightning) was codenamed “George” by the Allies. Development was interesting in that the Shiden was developed from the N1K Kyofu (Strong Wind / Rex), a floatplane.

The Shiden was heavily armed, with 4 x 20 mm cannon in the wings. It was considered the equal of the Hellcat, and could hold its own with the Corsairs and P-51s. As a bomber interceptor, it was hampered by poor rate of climb and inadequate engine performance at high altitudes.

The prototype flew in 1943, and the type entered production in January of 1944. Production never exceeded 83 per month (April and May 1945), and only 423 were produced before VJ day.

There are 4 surviving Shidens, one at the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola, one at the USAF Museum near Dayton, one at the Champlin Air Museum (on loan from the National Air and Space Museum), and one at Shikoku, Japan.

The Product:

The bombed out 2 story building on an abandoned cobblestone street haunted by tramcar poles and rail track is just what the doctor ordered. However other options included are two styles of street lamps, two door styles, picket fencing with gates, ladders, benches, tables, windows with latches, and many other miscellaneous items

Featuring 176 parts with 3 large vacuformed styrene panels that carry the building structures and the base, that measures 14” X 9.5” in size. All the parts are very nice and have excellent detail.

MiniArt offers free building and painting tutorials on their website.

The Build:

The Parts

Airfix has upgraded their original Apollo Saturn V kit (1991) to a Saturn V Skylab Launch vehicle with the additional of a new sprue. This new sprue provides the parts needed to represent the Saturn V in its Skylab launch configuration. The lab, itself, is not provided in the kit beyond the basic cylinder which make up the lab components that could be seen by the viewer during the rollout and launch of the Skylab mission.

This release also provides the CSM launch shield and escape tower, as well as a LEM. These are the old, original parts and even though there are some “scale” issues with the CSM it allows one to build a decent Apollo Saturn V from the parts contained in the Skylab kit.