With the text printed in Japanese, we are basically presented with a large picture book. Featuring extractions serialized in the Monthly Model Art magazine. Looking at the beautiful illustrations of the Japanese land, naval aircraft and the equipment one can easily tell it has been diligently researched with documented detail and precisely reproduced. I’ve listed a small sample of the topics:

• Type 98 gun sight in several variations
• Type 100 gun sight in several variations
• Torpedo sights and sighting equipment
• Specific drop tanks for fighters
• Wooden rose tank construction
• Type 89 gun camera
• Type 1 gun camera
• Mitsubishi F1M auxiliary floats and construction
• Hasegawa 1/32 Shoki

The Bottom Line: It’s a great reference book, I highly recommend it. I would like to thank Model Art and IPMS for the opportunity to present this fine publication.

When I was offered the opportunity to review this kit, I jumped at the chance. Growing up in the UK, the Wessex was a familiar sight at airshows and at Airports. The kit looks great and when you open the box the size and amount of detail is fantastic!

In the box is:

• 7 x light grey sprues
• 2 x clear sprues
• 2 x Photoetched details parts
• 1 printed paper set of seats and seat belts
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet
• A lot of resin parts!

All the sprues are extremely well molded with super fine details. The plastic is a little softer than I like. A big drawback is the sprues have no part numbers on them so you have to keep turn back to the front of the instruction manual to ensure you are getting the right part from the right sprue!

I’m a sucker for oddities and non-standard schemes when it comes to finishing my model aircraft. I saw the Iliad designs offering for Stearman PT-17 airframes and thought this is the set for me. I was pleasantly surprised to see Iliad design proved a full set of five decal options. So you have five kits in your stash? You’re covered in this one set. Along with a very nice color representation of the each aircraft scheme Iliad Design goes the extra mile to describe any non-standard colors or more specifically non-stand color shades. Each scheme as one would expect come with a short description of each aircraft.

Eduard continues its “full meal deal kits” this time with Accurate Miniatures 1/48^th scale SBD-5. For those who haven’t seen them, Eduard takes a very good kit, adds resin, photoetch and masks and bundles it into one solid kit. Let’s look at the contents. First, the highly detailed Accurate Miniatures SBD-5 kit. The full kit is here with all the parts including optional position canopies, nice engine detail and wonderful engraved detail. There was the barest flash present on a couple parts only. The resin parts for this include the tires which have two optional outer hubs, a tail wheel and parts for the gun. The decals are from Cartograf and have five excellent options. Markings are provided for the following:

Ross at SAC just keeps cranking these things out. THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your expansive line of metal landing gear, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review.

This is the now-expected, much improved upgrade to the kit plastic. The real SU-24 has a complex landing gear which is, per Russian standard, designed to allow the aircraft to operate from less-than-optimal runways. Trumpeter has done a great job in emulating their design engineering, but due to the limitations of injection molding, has turned the already complex gear into a more complex assembly. The main gear consists of one core (either metal or plastic, builder’s choice), two strut halves, two gear swing arm halves with axles, and detail parts and struts. To their credit, they include metal gear in the basic kit, which, when complete, does a great job of holding up this large aircraft (It’s the size of an F-111… that’s pretty big for a figher bomber).