The Boeing (formerly McDonnel-Douglas) F/A-18C is an improved version of McDonnel-Douglas’ F/A-18A, which in itself was developed from the Northrop YF-17 lightweight fighter prototype.

Academy’s 1/72 F/A-18C is a faithful reproduction of the actual aircraft, although the details in the cockpit and the gear wells is sparse. The fit is generally excellent, with several seams, notably around the intakes (parts B16 and B17). Be careful when assembling the sides of the fuselage (parts B1 and B2), as it is very easy to misalign these parts. One other tricky assembly is the main landing gears, as each main gear leg has a smaller actuating cylinder that needs to be installed at the same time, and the best way to do this is to dry fit both pieces and once the alignment is correct, apply glue.

The R-3S (AA-2 “Atoll”) air-to-air missile was developed by the Soviet Union as their equivalent of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. It was used extensively by the Soviet Union on its fighters and it was exported widely to its allies.

In conjunction with Eduard’s release last summer of its new MiG-21MF kit, Eduard released several photo-etch and resin accessory sets for the kit. This set is actually the combination of two other sets: MiG-21MF pylons (672 184) and R-3S missiles for MiG-21 (672 185). As a result, the set not only provides replacement pylons for all five stations, but also four R-3S (“Atoll”) air-to-air missiles and their associated launch rails. Buying this set instead of the other two sets individually will also save you a few bucks as the suggested retail price of this set is $3 cheaper than the combined price of the other two sets.

Following up the first three in this series, The Russian Aviation Colours 1909-1922: Camouflage and Markings, Volume 1 Early Years, Volume 2 “Great War”, Volume 3 “Red Stars”, comes MMP’s latest tome. This book, focused on ‘Against Soviets’ is the final volume in the series. The author leans heavily on Russian private archives, as well as archives, libraries, and museums.

The book is a nice hardbound, with a nice glossy cover, and 128 pages on high-quality stock with a matt finish. Mainly clear black and white period photos are supplemented with modern day color photos, color period posters and postcards, colour side and top views, and colour unit emblems and personal markings. The text is in English and quite readable. I counted 173 black and white photographs to go with an additional 21 color pictures. There were 79 color side profiles and another 51 color drawings highlighting markings details.

I really like the LEGENDS OF WARFARE series of books. These 9” by 9” hardback books cover aircraft, armored vehicles and ships in 112 pages filled mainly with good sized pictures.

This one is on the F4U Corsair from prototype through WWII, Korea and afterwards.

There is a quick introduction followed by chapters on each of the production versions, in this case, the prototype XF4U-1, the F4U-1 “Birdcage”, the -2 nightfighter, -1A with the raised canopy, the 20mm armed -1C, the -1D which was the most common version used during WWII, -4, -5, AU-1 ground attack version, -7 used by the French Navy, and the F2G.

This set is designed to fit Eduard’s new MiG-21 kit. The package includes two complete sets of gear, so you can outfit two kits. Each set includes left and right main gear legs (with helpful tabs marked “L” and “R” at the top), a scissor link for each of the main gear struts, two main gear retraction struts, and two-piece nose gear.