Quickboost’s latest item is a detailed seat, with the harness installed, for the Meng 1/32 Scale Me 163B. All you need to do to use this seat is paint to it, remove it from the pour stub, and install it. This seat is well worth the investment, as it will save you the time of building a seat with harness. In person, it looks a lot better than under a digital camera’s lens.

This item is, like all Quickboost parts, worth every penny!

Thanks to Aires for providing IPMS/USA with this review set and to the IPMS/USA leadership for passing it my way!

Thanks first to Aires/Quickboost for providing IPMS USA this review set and IPMS leadership for passing it my way!

OK, here we go. The Meng ME163B is a very nice kit; the addition of a bit of resin is applied in this case to the cockpit. I believe this set could also work in the 40-year old Hasegawa powered-egg… have not tried it yet.

The overall presentation is excellent. The tub itself is well detailed as is. Mounting straps for the “S” stoff tanks on either side of the pilot are there; the back bulkhead has rivet and seat mounting details. A yoke for the rudder pedals mounts in the forward tub, to which are attached massive foot pedals with standard boot harnesses. I recommend you remove about ¼” of the lower cheeks off the forward cockpit tub, because it will not fit in the model fuselage halves if you don’t. A simple fit check indicates that will work as a solution.

I’ll start by continuing my line of thanks to Ross at SAC for providing one more set of his gear and to the IPMS/USA leadership for shipping the item to review!

This will be a really simple review; the SAC set for the excellent new ICM 1/48 Dornier series provides an equally excellent upgrade to the kit’s landing gear. Consisting of four parts, this set is, as usual, an attractive and worthwhile acquisition to use on the kit. The set is useful, if for no other reason, in that the kit items require extraordinary care in removal from the parts tree. See the pictures for an example of the kit items still attached to the injection runner: the broken kit arm is an example of the scale (but delicate) nature of these items.

Hasegawa has re-released their 1/48 F-2A, this time as a “Detail Up” Limited Edition, with photoetch parts. The detail set includes seatbelts, landing gear wiring and some details for the underwing pylon stations and air discharging cones in the wings/tail section.

When opening the box you find 12 sprues for a total of 179 pieces. Typical of Hasegawa the underwing stores include drop tanks and, as a nice surprise, some air-to-air missiles (AAM-3, I’ve believe). This boxing has regular Hasegawa printed decals for 3 different versions of the F-2A in Japanese service.

Construction starts with the cockpit and with the air intake. Both subassemblies have good fit and decent detail, but probably the cockpit instrument panel could use a PE replacement, even more considering how visible it is under the clear bubble canopy. I wished the PE fret would have included some instrument panel detail.

Special Hobby provided this kit to IPMS in August, 2013. “Real life” intervened and the original reviewer thought it best to return the item so another reviewer volunteer to take on the review. That process began in mid-October, 2014 and the kit was completed in mid-December, 2014.

Instruction Sheet

Error – Page 13, Shows two part “PUR 13”s. The upper illustration (Step 20) uses two arrows to indicate the correct placement of two rear-facing machine gun barrels. These barrels are centered on a small ridge formed by the trailing edge of the cowl where it fairs into the upper wing skin. The arrow showing the placement of the port-side barrel is in error. Both barrels should be centered on the aforementioned “ridge” on both the starboard and port sides. Further, machine guns were not installed on the “B” version but were installed on the “C” version according to “Warplanes of the Third Reich”.