Over the past few years Airfix has been turning out some stunning kits and thankfully the detail community has been stepping up to the plate to provide details for those new kits. No exception is the Czech company Brengun who has released a nifty detail set for the new tool Airfix DH.82a Tiger Moth series of kits.
THANK YOU to our friends and suppliers at Aires/Quickboost for this excellent improvement set for the Tamiya P-51 series! And thanks also to the reviewer corps leaders for making the set available to me to review.
This set takes the kit components and improves them in a major way. If you follow the Tamiya P-51 kit instructions, the kit prop blades are cemented to the spinner back half, then you cement the front half of the spinner to the back, trapping a poly-grommet in the spinner so you can press everything onto the front of the model at the end. It works, but there is a seam at the front of the spinner, and how to paint the whole thing comes into play. I have assembled the spinner and painted it and the props separately in the past; it worked, but the propellers are difficult to set at the proper angle using this method.
THANK YOU to our friends and suppliers at Aires/Quickboost (“QB”) for this excellent improvement set for the re-release by Italeri of the old AMT/ERTL A-20! And thanks also to the reviewer corps leaders for making them available to me to review!
This set takes the kit components and improves them by saving the modeler the trouble and frustration of trying to drill out all the radial exhausts on the A-20G series. The exhaust stubs on the kit parts are separate triangles of plastic as we would normally find from a mid-1990’s kit, remove and place on lightly-marked locating lines. Hmmm… and in each case, the exhausts are not drilled out. A great way to slash your fingers and test your patience.
Moving into the new century: 20 years later, the Italeria kit is the only game in town for a 1/48 A-20. QB not only provides hollowed-out exhausts, but have installed them for you so it’s a true drop-fit swap with vastly improved detail. Need I go further? (I must)
Aviaeology describes themselves on their EBay store as producers of well researched books, decals, decals 'n docs sets, and docs primarily for scale aircraft model makers who work in 1/24, 1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 scales. This is a great description of Aviaeology as they produce first rate decals with exhaustive research and all geared towards modelers.
This set covers 333 Squadron of Mosquito F.II’s and FB.VI’s from 1943-45 and specifically covers 8 different airframes. They are:
This is a white metal landing gear set is to for the Eduard 1/72 Fw-190 series of aircraft.
The white metal parts are outstanding and are a great replacement for the already well-detailed kit parts. The parts include the main two struts and support struts plus the rear wheel assembly.
The parts are well cast. One part was slightly bent, probably due to shipping and was easily bent back. The parts were a perfect fit to the existing mount and were a dream to assemble.
I highly recommend these parts are a great addition to an already extremely well detailed kit.
Thanks go to Scale Aircraft Conversions for providing this set to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them.
This set provides a set of replacement pitot tubes for the Trumpeter Su-15 kits. The set includes the nose mounted pitot as well as the pitot mounted in the leading edge of the left wing. The set includes 5 brass parts and two resin parts. The brass parts provide the circular tubes of the pitots and the resin parts replicate the fine vanes and protrusions commonly seen on Soviet pitot tubes.
The packaging for the set is really well thought-out as the brass parts are in separate pockets of the plastic envelope from the resin parts and the resin parts are contained in a small foam square that is lined with good sticky tape on the back side to keep the resin parts from floating around, which is good as the resin parts are very delicate.
The R-33E missile is a long range air-to-air missile similar to the US Navy’s AIM-54 Phoenix. It is one of the primary weapons of the MiG-31 Foxhound and is believed to have been intended originally for use against the SR-71 Blackbird, the B-1B Lancer and other high-flying targets, but is capable of attacking other targets at long range as well. The MiG-31 can carry 4 R-33’s and its weapon’s system allows it to attack 4 separate targets at once with the R-33s.
Many thanks to Hypersonic Models and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to review this excellent canopy detailing set for the iconic F-4 Phantom family. Hypersonic Models (HM) is a new contributor to the IPMS Reviewer system and is based in the UK, with a Facebook presence established 17 JUL 12. The operation is a one-man show, focused on well-researched products generated from quality CAD artwork and 3D- printed molds. HM has a specialty offering of modern-jet resin accessories, decals, canopy masks and reference drawings, with an X-15 emphasis.
Zvezda’s outstanding new Pe-2 kit leaves little room for improvement, but as is often the case, Aires has still found a way to add just a bit more detail here and there with a few new parts from Quickboost.
The kit’s four air intakes are molded in halves, requiring seam clean up of these small parts. The four Quickboost replacements are smooth, curved single-unit open-ended pipes. The kit’s sixteen engine exhausts pipes are even smaller pieces, all with flush ends. The Quickboost replacements mimic the larger intakes’ smooth surface and convincing open ends. The walls of these openings are so thin that care will be needed when handling them so as not to crush them, especially when removing them from the casting block.
Often the kit manufacturers produce wheels for the kits which aren’t as accurate as some modelers demand. The term AMS comes to mind here. Anyway, Res-Im has produced improved resin wheels for the late model 1/144 MiG-21.
Only the main wheels are done for this set, as all of the 1/144 MiGs I found had the gear leg molded onto the nose wheel. This shows up in the photo below which shows the Airfix wheels and the Res-Im wheels, with the nose wheel firmly molded onto the gear leg.
There’s no real assembly to this set, you just paint the wheels. Additionally, there are no instructions, but they aren’t needed. I painted the wheels first before I removed them from the pour sprue. Then I cut the wheels off the sprue, cleaned up the attachment points, and finished painting the tires.
