Historical Background

The author presents a brief history of the development and operational career of the Messerschmitt Bf-109 series, but the main emphasis of this book is the explanation of the development of colors and markings used for these aircraft. Granted, this topic has been addressed before in many publications, and the Bf-109 has probably had more written about it than any other combat aircraft from the World War II Era.

Beginning with a brief description of the origins of the aircraft, a brief account of the development and service career is presented. Following this is a short section entitled “Camouflage, Markings, and Heraldry”, which explains how the Luftwaffe fighter groups were organized, and the color coding that was used to identify sub-groups within units. The author also explains the development of the specific colors used for overall camouflage schemes, as well as individual unit variations used for different climatic conditions.

Call me old-fashioned, but I consistently find myself being floored by the level of modeling detail available these days, especially with resin aftermarket materials. In the old days, you could only dream of this kind of quality.

Quickboost scores another one with their release of this outstanding set of P-38 gun barrels. Designed to fit the Trumpeter kit (although I suspect they’d fit the venerable Revell kit in the same scale). The set includes four .50 caliber barrels and the 20mm cannon barrel.

Each machine gun barrel has the lightening holes beautifully represented completely around the barrel as well as an open muzzle. The cannon barrel displays the minute recoil spring and an open muzzle as well. Designed to be drop-in pieces, they should require no additional work to add them to your model and will certainly enhance this area immensely.

Tamiya set the standard with their 32 scale F-4 Phantom II kits and these still dominate the market with their attention to detail. While being on top of the modeling empire, the leaders do lack at times in details and the nature of injection molding that makes some detail difficult, if almost impossible. Quickboost came to the rescue with this little gem that will close out the leading edge of your Phantom tail. In 1/32 scale and on top of the model, this is a highly visible addition.

The replacement vertical tail vent comes in a sealed bag with picture of the parts and what portions to trim (on one part) and a reference to what part number it replaces on the kit. There are two identical vents in the package so depending on how many Phantoms you have, one set could last a while. This is the extent of the instructions which is all that is needed for this simple set. The resin is flash free and zero bubbles for a flawless surface.

When the A-4B Skyhawk was designed, provisions were made for it to use RATO rockets to give it a short deck-run launch (if carrier’s catapults were unavailable for any reason). One RATO bottle could be mounted on each speed brake giving an additional 9,000 lbs. of thrust for five seconds. The bottles were fired electrically and upon burnout were jettisoned hydraulically from the cockpit. While this capability was never used by the US Navy, in Vietnam, the Marines took advantage of this capability when launching A-4s from short airfields.

The LAU-131 is a seven shot rocket pod commonly used on USAF fighter, attack and rotary wing aircraft. A variety of rockets can be caried in this pod including the Hydra 70 rocket. This set is for the original LAU-131A which is shorter than the extended version LAU-131A/A that can carry APKWS II.

Packaged in a sturdy plastic box, resin is protected by bubble wrap with all parts flash free and cast in light gray resin. A nice touch is the pour block on the pod is on the underside opposite the side on where it connects to the pylon. This makes it easy to remove that portion and sand contour without damaging features.