The Kit

This is the first 1/72 kit by Tarangus, and follows their 1/48 SAAB Lansen A-32A and J-32B kits. Despite being a limited run kit, this is a major upgrade over the previously available Tunnan kits (Matchbox, Heller) and obviously the first as a J-29A or B. Of course the increase in accuracy does not correspond to an increase in buildability. I sincerely hope that Tarangus will expand this kit to do the later Tunnan versions. Hopefully the kit does well and we will soon see the reconnaissance version, S-29C, along with the later J-29E and J-29F with their distinctive dogtooth wings.

Thank you to Mushroom Publications for bringing a tremendous digital resource for the modeler. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to test out this new and exciting method of researching model subjects. This digital publication is nearly identical in content to the paperback version [suggestion to editor: here is the link for the paperback review on the IPMS Review site.

Overview

I am very pleased with the increasing availability of research material in the tablet world. Interactive Panels allows an interesting reference experience for the WWII German aircraft modeler. Cockpit views of six different aircraft instrument panels are included, as listed:

History Brief

The Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Developed by Sydney Camm, Hawker's Chief Designer in the late 1930s, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 300 miles per hour in level flight. It was a single seat fighter with an enclosed cockpit. It featured a stressed skin aluminum wing with fabric covered aluminum control surfaces. The fuselage was a mix of steel tube, aircraft spruce forms, and fabric.

1700 Hurricanes fought in the Battle of Britain. That’s more than all other British fighters combined and those historic fights were seen as the Hurricane's finest hour. It fought over southern England and the English Channel during the summer of 1940 and fixed a place in history accounting for 60% of the RAF's air victories in the battle. After the Battle of Britain ended the Hurricanes were used across the world until the end of World War II.

In 2014, the 482 Fighter Wing painted up one of its F-16C’s to commemorate its 25th anniversary. The jet was decorated with a mako shark motif including a shark mouth on the intake, a shark head on the forward fuselage and a shark fin on the vertical tail. The motif was created by modifying the standard F-16 scheme to incorporate the shark design.

SAC has recently issued a replacement cast white metal gear set for the new beautiful and enormous Kitty Hawk OV-10D in 1/32nd scale. Kitty Hawk will also be issuing this kit in an OV-10A/C version soon and this gear should work well for that kit as well.

Big Note Here: This is not an issue with the SAC gear but with the Kitty Hawk OV-10D. Kitty Hawk calls for the numbers on their instructions that don’t exist on the sprue runners. There is no “G” sprue. These parts actually exist on runner “J”. For me I found it easiest to just mark runner “J” to “G”. Disaster averted. I will be using the Kitty Hawk instruction parts numbers to identify the corresponding SAC parts.