Coming in under budget, on schedule and underway the McDonnell Douglas F/A -18 E/F have replaced 4 separate aircraft for the US Navy. The Super Hornet has more powerful engines and can carry war weapons further then the previous Legacy Hornets. Congress was quick to approve the new Hornet which is an advanced derivative of the existing Hornet.

Revell has recently re-released both versions of the new modern Super Hornet. The version I chose to model is a specially decorated version of the Super Hornet from VX-23 “Salty Dogs” (Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23) NAS Pax River, Maryland. Sporting very bright blue diamond stripe with red and white checks down the spine and bright blue vertical stabilizers, this is remarkably attractive aircraft. The second airframe on the decal sheet is A CAG bird from VFA-32 the Fighting Swordsman's from Navel Air Station Oceania, Virginia Beach Virginia.

Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the 1/48 Bae Hawk and it can be used with all variants of that kit.

The set includes 7 parts with the following breakdown two main landing gear struts, plus actuator arms for the above and a tail wheel. The parts are finely molded in white metal. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

I should say that these parts are more than just drop-in replacements. Some of the white metal parts actually comprise the equivalent of a few plastic parts, so you get an easier job of assembling the landing gear as you have fewer parts to deal with. In addition, you don’t have to deal with cleaning seam lines.

During the 1950’s, Boeing Aircraft Company (BO) teamed up with the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center (MARC) to create the U.S. Air Force’s first nuclear-armed surface-to-air missile. Combining both entities and shortening Boeing created the name of the new missile – BOMARC.

Revell has reissued its classic kit of the IM-99 BOMARC missile. This kit dates back to 1958, and has some features common to that era, such as operating parts and oversized “rivets”. In this case, the missile launch rail moves up and down, and the nose clamps on the rail open and close. Considering the age of the kit, the fit of the parts was pretty good, with very little putty and sanding needed after assembly. However, there is a moderate amount of flash on many parts.

Eduard has issued a four-bladed resin propeller to upgrade the propeller in their SE.5a kit. The upgraded propeller includes resin and photoetch parts with much finer detail than the kit propeller.

The Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5 was introduced in 1917 with a 150 HP V8 Hispano-Suiza 8A engine with two-bladed counter-clockwise (left) rotating propeller. The SE.5a was an improved version of the SE.5 and was one of the fastest fighters of WWI. The SE.5a aircraft was originally produced with a 200 HP Hispano-Suiza 8B gear-driven engine (‘Hisso’), with a counter-clockwise (left) rotating four-bladed propeller. The gear-driven engines proved unreliable, and were quickly replaced with the 200 HP Wolsely Viper direct drive engine with clockwise rotating (right) two-bladed propeller.

Master Model of Poland produces small brass parts for detailing models, be they aircraft or ships. They have parts for aircraft in 1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/72, and 1/144, mostly pitot tubes, refueling probes, and gun barrels.

This “add-on” is a single pitot tube. It’s very fine turned brass. The detail is so fine that I had to use my magnifiers to determine that there are three different diameters on the pitot, getting smaller at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the length.

The instructions are to the point:

• Remove the kit pitot from the mount.
• Drill a hole in the mount.
• Glue the new pitot in the hole using CA
• Put the mount under the F-100’s intake.

I was able to skip step 4, as the kit pitot was already mounted under the nose.