Developed in the years following World War 2 to fulfill Naval Aviation’s “Heavy Attack” capability, the Douglas Aircraft design team under the legendary Ed Heinemann created the jet powered, swept winged A-3 (originally designated A3D-1) Skywarrior to carry nuclear destruction to the Soviet Union from the decks of the Navy’s new Midway class carriers. Replacing the little loved North American AJ Savage, what started out as a single purpose “heavy” bomber soon became one of the Navy’s most “multi-purpose” aircraft in its inventory. When its nuclear delivery mission was taken over by the A-5 Vigilante, the A-3 found itself with a new mission list that eventually included, “iron” bombing, aerial refueling, photo reconnaissance, electronic jamming and counter-measurers, electronic surveillance, high speed COD and VIP transport, and navigation training.

Finally, somebody has made figures for the helicopter models in 1/48 scale. Aero Line’s latest release is marketed as a Cobra crew. As far as I know there have been no previous US Army helicopter pilots available in this scale.

Packaged in a vacuformed shell, Aero Line has created two beautifully cast figures molded in light gray resin. The instructions are on the back of the insert card. There is no actual color callout, just the color profiles. The instructions show the flight suits in a Vietnam-era olive green like the two-piece flight suit of the time; however, with the way the figures are molded, you could easily modify them by removing the upper pants pockets and painting the flight suit in the sage green color of the one-piece and no one would be the wiser.

My thanks to Eduard for furnishing this photo-etch set for review and IPMS for allowing me to do it.

The Avro Lancaster of World War II fame can trace its linage back to the twin-engine Avro Manchester. The Manchester saw a lot of action in the early months of World War II. However, it was underpowered and generally did not meet RAF expectations. Using the Manchester as a starting point the Avro engineers increased the wing span, replaced the two Rolls-Royce X-24 Vultures with four Rolls-Royce V-12 Merlins, lengthened the fuselage and redesigned the tail. The results was a bomber with impressive performance and excellent flying characteristics. Its top speed was 282mph at 63,000 lbs. and its landing speed was 95-100mph using the old split flap design set to full down.

History

As there is enough on the history of this aircraft either in print or on the internet I will not go into it here. Suffice to say that the Hellcat is the most successful carrier based aircraft in history as 12,275 were built, 270 were lost and Hellcat pilots claimed 5156 kills in less than two years of ops.

Eduard’s Brassin line has some of the finest resin cast parts that I have ever run across, from any manufacturer. These exhaust nozzles are a direct one-for-one replacement for the kit nozzles. Those that come in the kit are the best I’ve ever taken out of a kit box, but Eduard’s are still another step above.

Eduard gives you two burner cans, two exhausts, two exhaust cones and a photo etch sheet with the flame holders. Each of the resin components has a very ease to remove pour block which takes no time in removing. You have to be careful with the exhaust cones however, because they have some very, very fine vanes that are pretty much guaranteed to break during removal of the pour block. You won’t be able to see them once the cans are inside the model, but you will know they are missing! Install the cans at the same time in the construction process as the it parts, and you’ll be on your way.

My thanks to Eduard and to IPMS/USA for the review samples.