Thank you to the great folks at Eduard for releasing an elegant upgrade set to enhance their kit of a unique Sikorsky flying boat. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us kits to review, the reviews posted, and the news spread to the world.

The Sikorsky JRS-1, or S-43, is similar in appearance to the famous Pan Am Clipper, the S-42. I did not know that several of these planes survived the Pearl Harbor attack, and went in search of the Japanese fleet immediately afterward. This upgrade is very nice supplement to the base kit.

Overall Summary

The upgrade parts are all on a thin brass etched fret 2.75 x 3.25 inches in size. A color instruction and accurate placement guide accompanies the parts. Additional details for the cockpit and exterior are included. Fold lines are etched, allowing very precise forming of even the smallest handles and other small details.

This decal sheet states that it was designed exclusively for use with Eduard’s outstanding 1/72 Fw 190A series of kits. The sheet provides seven different styles of Balkenkreuze, consisting of the simple white outline Balkenkreuze for the upper wings, and three options for both the fuselage and the underwing Balkenkreuze. There are the simple black Balkenkreuze outline, a solid black Balkenkreuze with a white border and the solid black Balkenkreuze with the white outline and a thin black outline outside of the white. This provides a lot of options to match the style Balkenkreuze used on the aircraft you are modeling.

As with all of Eduard’s new decals, these are very thin, but strong and react extremely well to Microsol and Microset, snuggling right down over details without silvering.

This is the second detailing set from Quickboost for the new Trumpeter Su-24 Fencer kits and focuses on the external antennas. The set includes replacements for 3 of the antennas in the kit and provides 5 others that are not in the kit. As the set is market simply for the Trumpeter Su-24, you may need to alter the antenna locations a little bit depending on whether you are building the Su-24MR or the Su-24M.

The antennas are sharply cast in Quickboost’s standard resin and the castings not only include the individual antennas, but also the mounting plate by which the antenna is attached to the aircraft. The antennas are easily separated from the cast block, either with a razor saw or even with sprue nippers. I removed the antennas one at a time, sanded down the mounting plate and then attached the antenna with superglue before moving on to the next antenna.

Are you looking to add a little life to your 1/32 scale F-16 Fighting Falcon? If so, you may want to consider the latest release in this scale from the folks at PJ Production. This is the third PJ Production figure that I have had the pleasure of reviewing, and like the other two, assembly was easy, with minimal part clean-up being required. The detail is reasonable for this scale, and the figure can be used with the Tamiya, Hasegawa, or Academy kit. The only modeling skill required involves painting a figure; otherwise, I would recommend this as an item manageable by modelers of nearly any skill level.

Last year Trumpeter released a pair of very nice Su-24 kits, replacing the old Dragon kits. This set is one of two released by Aires/Quickboost to upgrade some of the Trumpeter parts. The set consists of five parts: the inflight refueling probe, the refueling probe door that covers part of the probe when it is retracted, the bay into which the probe retracts and the two fuel dump pipes under the engines.