British aircraft have hard edged fairly standard paint schemes. This can be a blessing and a boon for modelers. Well it has been made infinitely easier thanks to Eduard.

Packaged in a ziplock bag, Eduard provides you two sheets of Kabuki tape masks which I think is the best masking medium out there. If you aren’t familiar with Kabuki tape, it is the same stuff that Tamiya tape is made of. You can tell if it is properly down because it is slightly see through. The one sheet has the fuselage halves on it and the other has the wings, tail and some extra strips. They are all easy to apply and they fit perfectly.

I’ve used these types of masks from Eduard on some Spitfire kits and they work perfectly. This makes the arduous task of masking simple and easy. If you are careful when you remove them they can be used multiple times.

Aires is known as the producer of excellent after-market and detail items, and this product lives up to that standard. Designed for use on the Hasegawa P-40M/N this product provides for both of the horizontal stabilizers and control surfaces. There are four parts in all, cast in a durable resin material.

Looking at the accompanying images, note that the image labeled, ” 2 Parts 1” shows the parts after having been removed from the package. One will notice some “flash” between the parts and the part carrier. Not to worry, that flash is easily removed with a sharp blade or a pair of cutters. All four parts were removed and cleaned up in under 5 minutes without the use of sandpaper. Study the image labeled, “3 Aires Parts Removed from carrier” to see one set of parts after having been cleaned up.

Brengun has produced a very nice proposed German Aircraft design by Blohm & Voss based on the all wooden construction of the BV-40 Glider of which several prototypes were flown in 1944. The detail and high quality of this product is very good and the sprue also includes the Glider fuselage.

In the box is:

• 1 x light brown Sprue
• 1 x clear Sprue
• 1 x Photo Etch sheet
• 2 x Resin Rockets and launch rack
• 1 x Decal sheet
• 1x Instruction sheet

All the sprues are well molded with no flash at all.

The detail is very fine and crisp for such a small aircraft.

Construction

The build start with the cockpit which is nice for the scale, the pilot flew this aircraft in the prong position. Next the fuselage is joined, there was a little filling required to get a good fit.

When one thinks of WWII and the RAF, the Spitfire instantly comes to mind. Author and illustrator Robert Grudzien has created a superb album of Spitfire V profiles in full color.

The illustrations include Spitfire Vs flown by the British, Poles, Australians, USAAF, Soviet, Yugoslavian, Greek, Italian, Egyptian and Turkish Air Forces. Also included is a Spitfire VB in “captured” Luftwaffe markings.

The illustrations are excellent resources for those who are searching for camouflage patterns and some lesser known color schemes and markings. A quad page fold-out shows the port side of probably the best known Spitfire B used by the Poles and flown by S/Ldr Jan Zumbach.

Aires has come out with a nice upgrade for the Hasegawa A6M series of kits with their horizontal control surfaces set. The Aires parts allow you to alter the position of the elevators and provide improved stabilizer to elevator detail. There are no supplied instructions; you simply swap out the kit provided plastic parts with the new Aires replacements.

Aires has molded the stabilizer and elevator perfectly in light grey resin with no apparent bubbles. The Aires stabilizer and elevator are supplied on a single resin sprue with thin resin attachments to the parts that should minimize any cleanup.

Although most paints will adhere to resin alone, I would recommend that you wash the parts to remove any remaining mold release and prime them first. They will need to be installed with your favorite CA (super glue) or epoxy, as the normal plastic glues or solvents will not react with the resin.

Highly recommended!