I find it hard to believe the MiG-21 design is almost as old as I am and is still serving as a front-line fighter in several air forces around the world. I’m still pretty active, but no longer a “front-line fighter” by any stretch of the imagination. Since the end of WWII, in almost any conflict involving Western air forces, the adversary has been a Mikoyan-Gurevich designed aircraft: in many instances, the MiG-21 Fishbed.

In Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, Alexander Mladenov thoroughly covers the MiG-21 from its early development to its role in several conflicts around the world. His descriptions are often technical, but very readable nonetheless. The chapter titles give a good idea what is discussed:

Each issue of Scale Aircraft Modeling has been a basic design and format but they changed it up with the last issue. In this issue, there are five feature articles, an Aviation in Profile piece, and five Compact Build Reviews.

The Feature articles for this issue start with Jay Laverty's build review of the Trumpeter 1/48 Westland Whirlwind Mk I. The kit is built and shows no issues. The majority of the article concentrates on the superb weathering done to replicate V HE which showed a lot of chipping. Mr. Laverty also corrects the markings, adds Barracuda cast wheels and uses ComArt's excellent weathering set. The result is spectacular!

Next up is Mr. Laverty's build of Planet models 1/48 Westland Welkin. This is a good size all resin kit and it is finished superbly in a Medium Sea Grey scheme. There are also some excellent tips in working with resin kits.

Background

On November 27, 1944 a 21-year-old Captain named Leonard “Kit” Carson was leading a flight of Mustangs on a mission to strafe oil reserve stores at Leipzig. As they approached the area of Magdeburg, Germany a large group of 50-75 Fw190s was spotted. The squadron dropped their long-range tanks and turned to attack the Focke Wulfs head on. In a series of turning, diving and climbing dogfights Carson managed to down five of them. By wars end, then Major Carson would fly 115 combat missions and score 18 ½ aerial kills with an overall score of 23 with ground kills included. Carson flew four different Mustangs called “Nooky Booky” including P-51K 411622 depicted in this review. I don’t think anymore of an introduction is needed for this legendary aircraft.

This set from Quickboost is designed to replace and improve upon the kit parts for Hobby Boss’s Mi-2 Hoplite. It includes part from two other Quickboost sets, as well as FOD covers (Foreign Object Damage) for the intakes and exhausts. The kit’s air intake cowling includes two holes through which you place the air intakes. It also has a molded-in intake in the upper center with a screen engraved in it. Additionally, there are two exhaust ports on each side of the engine cowling. The Quickboost parts are the cowling with two hollowed intake tubes cast in, along with an opening at the upper center, plus four properly shaped and thinned exhausts. The neat addition to this set is the FOD covers for all these openings, along with photoetch pull handles for them. You also get a photoetch screen to place over the opening in the air intake cowling, along with a spare screen.

This is the third set of 1/48 decals from Speed Hunter Graphics which came out of the Reid Air Publishing Group. The decals look very nice, clear and in register. They are printed by Cartograf of Italy and work very well, I’ll tell you why in a bit. This offering covers six F-15C MSIP II Eagles with a nice mix of Mig killers, commanders' aircraft, and even an aggressor bird. You couldn’t ask for a more varied mix. I couldn’t find whose kit these decals were sized for on the instruction sheet but on the web site it was recommended for the Hasegawa F-15C. As fate would have it, I only had the Academy kit which seemed to work quite well. I also noticed that the site had selections for 1/32 and 1/72 size sheets. I do hope that they branch into the other scales because these decals are really worth it.

The options included in this set are: