This is a replacement canopy for Revell’s 1/144 EE Lightning jet fighter.

Everyone has that moment when they realize that the canopy for their model is missing, damaged, or unusable for some reason. As far as unusable, I’ve had canopies for some kits which were so thick and murky that there wasn’t any reason to put detail in the cockpit.

This one was just an exercise in doing a vacuform canopy. The Revell canopy for their EE Lightning F.6 was usable, but this item had been sitting on the list for a while, and I thought we owed Brengun a review.

I built the Revell Lightning pretty much out of the box, except for the markings which I borrowed from aftermarket sheets, modified from the kit decals, and made my own serials and aircraft numbers.

This is a replacement canopy for Sweet’s 1/144 Hurricanes. The Sweet kit is a really great Hurricane, very nice to build, with great fit. The kit canopy is molded as a solid piece, very thick. Well, for a 1/144 kit it’s very thick. There’s no hollow part inside the canopy, it’s just a chunk of nicely molded clear plastic. But that’s not why I really, really appreciated this review item. When I got the canopies in the mail, I got out a kit I bought at a local swap meet. The kit comes with two complete aircraft. Except this box only had ONE CANOPY!! That’s when I really knew I owed Phil Peterson and John Noack a big thank you for this one.

The Douglas A-1 series of aircraft (known as the AD prior to 1962) was designed as an attack aircraft that could carry a heavy load of ordinance.

Quickboost’s A-1H Tailwheel brings an improvement to the Hasegawa A-1H kit. This part replaces only the bottom part of the strut, and not the entire strut. The wheel itself is separate from the strut, and you have a choice of two wheel designs, one being spoked and the other is a solid wheel design.

I cut the bottom portion of the tailwheel strut where indicated in this kit’s instructions, and then glued the replacement strut piece into place using cyanoacrylate glue. Once the glue was dry, I painted the strut, installed the wheel onto the strut, and installed the strut onto the model.

I highly recommend this detail set for the Hasegawa kit. My thanks to Quickboost for the review sample.

The CASA-212 Aviocar is a versatile transport aircraft that was manufactured in Spain since the ‘60’s, and Indonesia until 2012. The C-41A is a military version used by the US, Mexico and many other countries within Central and South America. It exhibits excellent short field takeoff and landing (STOL) abilities, and is able to operate from unprepared airstrips.

This model is a re-release of various other versions of the aircraft. It comes in a very sturdy top opening box with a nice painting of the US military C-41A. All sprue trees were contained in one bag, with the clear parts and decal sheet in their own bags. The clear plastic bags are closed with sticky strips, so be careful when removing the decal sheet, and that you don’t allow the sticky strip to attach itself to the decals. I did, somehow, and had a heart stopping minute separating them! The instruction manual is printed on good quality glossy paper, and each step is clear, accurate and in color where needed.

The Kit

The kit consists of five light grey styrene sprues and one clear unit. Many parts, especially on Sprue D, are listed as not to be used. Some bombs and racks are also provided on Sprue G, but there is no reference in the instructions as to which variants carried them. More good fodder for the spares box.

The parts are well molded with very little flash, although the window openings required a little bit of trimming. Concerning the window arrangement, there is apparently another version of this kit with a straight row of rectangular windows, but this one had four square and four round windows, plus some oddly shaped windows by the cockpit, and, of course, the pilot’s windshield. There is adequate interior detail, including a complete cockpit, some rear cargo compartment detail, including radios, a seat, and several cameras. There is even a machine gun mounted in a ventral position. I can’t imagine why this was installed, but I included it in my model