Worldwide interest in Wingnut Wings’ announcement of a new 1:32 scale Brandenburg W12 floatplane kit along with Copper State Models recent 1:48 scale kit releases have prompted Albatros Productions to offer model builders a limited edition reprinting of its long-out-of-print Datafile 61 covering the Brandenburg W12. It is one of three reprints of Datafiles covering WWI floatplanes to be announced this year.

The Revell Bf-109G-6 when released was a welcomed addition to the 32nd Luftwaffe modeler. The Hasegawa kit was getting more difficult to find and was expensive nonetheless. The Revell kit at a third of the price was a bargain. However, the kit did have some shortcomings. One of the noticeable errors was the oil cooler under the nose. The kit was just not right. The sides were too vertical and that threw off the angles of the whole assembly.

The Quickboost piece is a single part with a minor pour block on the front of the cooler. You will have to clean out the front opening. This is nothing too difficult. Then to that piece you’ll have to add the kit exhaust flap. The part is a direct replacement for the kit part. The shape is spot on and looks significantly better than the kit part.

This set will require some patience but nothing that a modeler with a few resin pieces under his belt couldn’t handle.

Highly recommended

With Wingnut Wings release of dual boxings of WWI floatplane kits, Albatros Productions has decided to again offer a limited edition reprinting of its long-out-of-print Datafile 55 – Brandenburg W29. The subject must be a popular one because this is the second time Albatros has reprinted this Datafile.

On the heels of Finnish Fighter Colours 1939-1945, Romanian Fighter Colours 1941-1945, Hungarian Fighter Colours 1930-1945, and Swedish Fighter Colours 1925-1954, comes MMP’s latest tome. This book, focused on the ‘Early Years’ is planned to be followed by at least four additional volumes on the ‘Great War’ (Volume 2), ‘Red Stars’ (Volume 3), and ‘Against Soviets’ (Volume 4). The authors leaned heavily on Russian private archives, as well as archives, libraries, and museums.

The book is a nice hardbound volume, with a nice glossy cover, and 176 pages on high-quality stock with a matt finish. Mainly black and white period photos are supplemented with modern day color photos, color period posters and postcards, colour side and top views, and colour unit emblems and personal markings. The text is in English and quite readable.

A while back (2009 if you want to know) I built a Heller Mirage IVP with the Pavla recce pod. Last week I got a new refueling probe for this kit.

The new probe from Master Model is a single piece of turned aluminum, exactly the same length as the Heller probe. All I had to do was remove the plastic probe from the nose of the Mirage IV, drill a larger hole where the probe goes, paint the new part and install the part with some CA to hold it.

As it turns out, there was one more step to this project. The Master Model part is a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the kit part. But it was the work of only a few minutes to trim the kit nose taper to fit. A little more paint to match, and it was done.