I’ve been looking forward to building my namesake for a while now and jumped at the chance to take a look at this wonderful panel replacement from Yahu Models. The panel replacement set comes with photoetch replacement panels for both the front and rear cockpits and as well as the aft panel in the rear cockpit.

Assembly is straightforward, carefully remove the photoetch parts with a sharp hobby blade on a firm hard surface so as to avoid bending the metal parts. I sprayed gloss clear over the backing parts and matt gloss over the front cover prior to gluing the parts to each other. The gloss gives the illusion of glass over the instruments. At the same time the aft panel receives only a coat of matt clear.

Coming back into the hobby after a decade plus hiatus has been an eye-opener for me. The quality of kits has gone up, and 3D printing has created a large market of aftermarket items. These items can make a kit look more accurate, or enhance the quality of the display.

The Aires USAF/USMC land based wooden wheel chock with nylon rope falls into the enhance the quality of your display category.

You get 6 chocks per set, 4 large chocks (presumably for main gear), and two smaller (nose gear) chocks. A segment of thread (simulating nylon rope) also comes in the package.

The packaging is nice. The chocks are in a clear, re-sealable bag that has an instruction sheet inside.

Preparation and assembly is straight forward, I paint the chocks, drill/clean the hole for the nylon rope (thread); sand a small strip where I will apply glue, and then cut them off the sprue as needed.

Euro Decals has provided the IPMS/USA reviewer corps with a wonderful decal set for the WWII Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Vb in service with the Royal Air Force, South African Air Force, and Royal Canadian Air Force. There is no specific mention of a preferred model company for this decal set.

This 1/72nd scale decal sheet covers eleven (11) schemes:

Unboxing

This kit is packed very nice. It has 11 sprues molded in light grey for the aircraft and armament and 1 sprue of clear for the canopy, for a total of 225 pieces. It came with 2 decal sheets. 1 is the “Tiger Stripes” for the “Luftwaffe, 1993” version, which I have been attempting to do. This kit also includes 1 sheet of photo etch parts. They are beautifully done. However, for me, these parts were too small for me to work successfully with them. The item I was most impressed with was 1 sheet of masking film, mainly for the canopy. These were extremely high quality and fit perfectly where they should go. They made painting the aircraft without messing up the canopy a dream. I have never been able to mask another canopy as well as I did this one.

The instructions were highly detailed and even in color in some steps, plus the 4 different color schemes you could do. The illustrations were just as detailed as the parts themselves.

ICM has released a plethora of German medium bombers in the He-111, Ju-88s and Do-17 family. It is only natural to include bombs for them! What do you do if you don’t necessarily want the big kit? Or you want to add to your diorama? Well, ICM helps you out with sets like this one. It comes in a sturdy cardboard box with a cover bearing a nice photo of the contents.

Unusual for me is the inclusion of torpedoes. The instructions are on two separate sheets: one for the bombs and one for the torpedoes. They are printed on high-quality paper with full color painting instructions/decal placement. A sheet of decals is included. They look and work perfectly. There are six sprues of light grey plastic that is flash free. The grey is a little soft. That is a good/bad thing. Good when gluing but a bit of a challenge when cleaning up small and thin pieces.More on that later.