Background

The MiG-21 FISHBED has been the backbone of numerous air forces throughout the world. Recently, in the modeling community, we have been blessed with many variants of the MiG-21 from multiple manufacturers. This review covers the new release of the 1/72nd Revell of Germany MiG-21F-13 FISHBED C. This kit was previous released by Revell of Germany in 2005. Since the first release, it’s become relatively non-existent. However, that has now all changed with this new release! The only difference between the 2005 and 2015 releases are the decals (there were far more options and stencils in 2005).

Over the past few years, Master has established itself as a quality provider of turned-metal aftermarket details for ships, armor, and aircraft. Their latest set of new releases cover the F6F Hellcat, providing welcome metal details for three variants in three major scales. The detail set under review today covers the F6F Hellcat Night Fighters’ armament configurations in 1/72 scale.

Scale Aircraft Modelling's October 2015 issue comes with a gorgeous picture of a Wolfpacks 1/72 T-2 Buckeye in trainer markings. For me, that sets the tone for a great issue as I love the color scheme.

And that is how this issue starts with Karl Robinsons’ build of the beautiful 1/72 scale T-2 in the US Navy training scheme. He is well impressed with the kit and only notes small issues with fitting the intakes and flaps which are easily corrected.

Roden’s 1/144 kit of Bristol’s Type 175 Britannia is built by Andy McCabe. He builds it in BOAC markings and it looks wonderful for what he considers a “quick build”.

Mike Verier writes an excellent article on Gunships, highlighting the Roden 1/144 AC-47 Spooky. Not only does the article have an excellent build of the kit in which he scratch builds bulkheads and interior detail, but he follows it with an article detailing Roden 1/144 AC-119K and more info on other gunships.

History Brief

The Mk VIII was the follow-up of the Mk VII without the pressurized cabin and differed little from it’s Mk VII sibling. All Mk VIII Spitfires were built solely by Supermarine. A few early production models had extended wingtips, but the majority had the standard version. There are three sub-variants; the LF Mk VIII for low altitude, the F Mk VIII for medium altitude and HF Mk VIII for high altitude. Each was powered respectively by the Merlin 66, Merlin 63 and Merlin 70 engines.

The Mk VIII served almost exclusively overseas in the Mediterranean, with both the Desert Air Force and the USAAF, in the Pacific with the Royal Australian Air Force and with the RAF in the China-Burma-India theater. After the Mk IX and Mk V, the Mk VIII was the third most numerous operational variant with 1,658 examples.

Eduard’s new SUPERFABRIC (the name alone conjures thoughts of Wile. E. Coyote, Super Genius in my mind…) is a new line of seat belts from the ubiquitous aftermarket manufacturer. This latest evolution of scale aircraft seat belts is different from the company’s prior iterations, in that there are no phot-etched parts, and no cutting of materials to use these. They are made from a vinyl like, self adhesive fabric. They are printed in color, and have nice details, consisting of stitch marks and the buckle hardware.

When my set arrived, I eagerly opened the envelope, and gave them the once over, and apart from the above mentioned niceties, something seemed off to my eyes. I double checked the packaging and instructions, and they claimed the appropriate scale is 1/48. I checked again. If these are truly in 1/48, then Imperial Japanese Navy pilots must have been completely covered by their seat belts! They are very much too large.