The Kitty Hawk AH-1Z was ready for decals.

So, on to WW Decals 48-08. One word of caution; decide which aircraft you want to model BEFORE you paint! Floyd gives you eight different choices of aircraft, and there is something different about the color demarcation lines or non-skid paint or patches of other color paint on each aircraft. I didn’t have that forethought, so the end result was there was one aircraft that I could depict, and that was NO. 41 of HMM-268 (REIN). The sheet also contains two sets of common markings.

The Kit

Upon opening the box you are presented with 4 sprues of grey and 1 sprue of clear plastic, a sheet of decals, an 8 page instruction fold out and a 4 page color & markings guide. The plastic is nicely molded with fine recessed lines, no flash and just a few pin marks. The clear parts a thin and very clear. The decals are in register and look very nice.

This masking set is designed for Eduard’s L-39 Albatros kits and includes masks for all three sections of the canopy and for the main gear tires. As with all of Eduard’s mask sets, the fit of the masks is excellent as long as you take a little time to line them up.

For the main canopy sections, the set provides masks for the outlines of the canopy frames. and the instructions tell you to fill in the rest with liquid mask. As there is a lot of extra material on the mask set outside of the pieces to be used, I instead cut small pieces from the extra tape and used it to fill in the rest of the canopies. On interesting inclusion are masks for the clear divider section that goes between the cockpits. I did not use it as I left this piece out until final construction of the kit. I’m not sure how I would have gotten the mask off if I had used it and installed the part prior to painting.

Eduard has come out with several photo etch sets for the 1/32 Scale, HK Mk.IV Mosquito and this is one of them. This set provides new replacement control panel parts, control levers, side panel parts, rudder pedals, bomb sight and some other interior details. This set is a copy of their 32840 Interior SA (self- adhesive, I assume) without the additional fret with bulkheads and such.

The instructions are quite adequate to provide detailed information on part numbers and placement.

Assembly is straight forward but a little fiddly. There are a bunch of very tiny parts that need to be bent and shaped. I used a hobby knife with a number 11 blade to remove the photo etch from the fret. Some of the small parts are hard to hold and glue at the same time. This makes for a time consuming and sometimes aggravating assembly. I used an ACC type glue for assembly when required.

Warpaint’s latest is their standard A4 format,, softbound publication that is 48 pages (excluding covers) on Convair's B-36 Peacemaker series. Featuring 99 photographs (13 in color) along with 23 of Richard J. Caruana’s color profiles, including his color centerfold of “Miss Featherweight:” a B-36H-1-CF Peacemaker. The color profiles are further enhanced with color scrap illustration of opposite sides of the fuselage as necessary to depict special markings. Nose art and other special markings are also presented enlarged to show off details.

Kev Darling starts out with the seven year development of the Peacemaker, initiating in April 1941 with the initial USAAF specification. The impact of the Pacific war on the project is highlighted as well as ample discussion of the political, financial, technical issues that prolonged the service entry of the B-36.