Figures in 1/48^th scale, in particular helicopter figures, are like hen’s teeth. So when a new set comes out I am all over it. The latest of these releases is from PJ Production out of Belgium.

Packaged in a small end opening box, with a ziplock baggie inside of that, are three pour blocks of light grey resin and a tiny M-60 machine gun. The small M-60 is loose in the baggie so be careful you don’t lose it when opening the bag. There are no painting instructions inside, but the cover photo of the finished figures is adequate for the job.

The three resin figures represent two pilots and one door gunner. This would seem to indicate that it for a Loach since they sometimes flew with a crew of three and Hueys flew with a crew of four. All the figures have chicken plate body armor and SPH-4 type helmets, but in this scale they could easily be APH-5 helmets. The one thing that stands out is that the heads have microphones molded on. Great job.

Lifelike Decals from Japan is one of those hidden gems people need to hear more about. With a large selection in the most popular scales, they have decals for WWII era planes from Japan, Europe and the US. This set covers Part 2 for the B-25C/D/J in 1/72 scale and is meant for the Airfix B-25C/D.

Inside the package, you’ll find three decal sheets with two being made by Microscale and one by Cartograf all in perfect alignment. Two sheets cover the plane markings and one is for the roundels in two different styles. Also, there is a masking sheet for “Old Baldy”. There are specific instructions for each aircraft along with color profiles and details of how to represent that specific aircraft with aftermarket accessories where needed. A separate page on the history and types of national insignia is also included.

The sheet covers five aircraft:

The DFW C.V Landing Gear for the 1/32 scale Wingnut Wings kit is one of the many accessories offered by Scale Aircraft Conversions. This is the second of three of these aftermarket kits for which I am providing an out-of-box review. As with their other products, these are made of white metal.

For the packaging for this conversion kit, we have a blister pack with a clear plastic bubble. My only complaint with this is that you cannot reseal it once you open it. However, it likely keeps the cost of the kit down.

The kit consist of what appears to be 4 parts, two of which are connected together with a larger piece of metal sprue. Similar large metal sprues are connected to the other two other parts. I have to say that I am very impressed with the casting of the parts. After looking at them very closely, I did not see anything that would require any significant attention other than cutting them off of the large metal sprues.

This is a review of an A-4 Skyhawk crew access ladder in 1/72 scale made of photo etch parts. Given the scale of the ladder, it is obvious that all parts are going to take some patience to remove from the PE sheet and apply to the ladder.

The package contains a photo etch sheet containing all the parts needed to construct the access ladder and a one-page instruction sheet.

Instructions

The instruction sheet clearly marks parts. The ladder construction has all the parts and their locations in an exploded view of assembly

Building the Ladder

I started out by laying the PE sheet on a strip of tape that I had rubbed on the back of my hand and removed a couple of times to reduce the stickiness of the tape. The parts are so small that I was afraid of the parts flying off into infinity when they were cut from the PE sheet.

This is a thin book with only 48 pages, but they are very high quality pictures. The book is an addition to the Warpaint series of books, this time about the Chipmunk, which is one of the most well-known post-war piston engine basic training aircraft. It was designed to replace the Tiger moth by de Havilland Canada and first flew mid-May 1946, the same year it entered service. The Chipmunk was used mainly by the RCAF and RAF.

The detailed color profiles are great for any modelers reference and the photos cover all types of the aircraft. I found this book fascinating and will be building a couple of the featured aircraft and this will be a fantastic reference for me to use. I recommend this book to everyone who likes and or builds Phantom’s

Thanks go to Guideline Publications for providing this book to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.