Once again, thanks up front to Eduard for sending us this set; It’s been a great upgrade, (as you will be able to see) and a worthy investment. Thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for entrusting such a massive endeavor to my feeble skills…
Here’s what’s was next in the envelope after I worked the interior sets…
While the P-51 B-, C-, and, certainly, D-models are well known and feature in plenty of references, that is not the case for the Allison-powered versions of the Mustang. SAM Publication’s new book The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang: Part 1 Allison Powered is meant to fill the void.
The first 74 pages of the book cover the history of the early versions, from inception and design, to early combat with the RAF, USAAF, and a few other minor operators. These sections pack an incredible amount of research and are paired with period black-and-white pictures illustrating the design, construction, and service of the early Mustangs. Reading these pages is very interesting, as they cover all sorts of details from armament philosophy, to the political situation within and between the US Army Corps and North American Aviation.
The next 12 pages are devoted to period pictures of the Mustang and the Apache A-36 in RAF/USAAF service. They also feature 25 color profiles.
First, thank you to the wonderful folks at KittyHawk Model for providing a welcome addition to early US Navy jet modelers, the TF-9J Cougar. This new release from KittyHawk fills a long-standing gap in 1/48 scale USN jets. KittyHawk subjects are starting to fill out my collection more and more!
Thanks very much to Ross at SAC for providing IPMS USA this review accessory, and to the IPMS Review corps leadership for entrusting me to use it.
Here is the latest in SAC’s line of gear to improve the kits we build. Consisting of two main gear, two retraction arms, two gear braces, and a replacement tail gear, it is a simple set with vastly improved strength.
How do I know this? During my marathon building session over the Columbus Day holiday weekend, I was able to build the Hobbyboss BV 141 kit. And dropped it twice after installing the SAC gear. It stayed on, bent, but was bent back into shape. Resilience personified.
This follow-up review of Eduard’s detail set covers pretty much “everything else” in the set since the cockpit was covered in Part One. I won’t summarize that section here, but have provided the link to it if you’re interested in reading and referencing that one to get the complete picture of this detail set.
A drawback of this entire build had nothing to do with the Eduard set---the Airfix A-4B kit I purchased was damaged---it came out of the box with three of the six tiny little slat tracks broken off, and worse yet, missing from the poly bag to boot. This further complicated the project and caused me lots more heartburn and delay than if I’d had a complete kit.
Each issue of Scale Aircraft Modeling has the same basic design and format. That's not a bad thing as it is jam packed with superb aircraft builds and tips. In this issue, there are four feature articles, an Aviation in Profile piece, and five Compact Build Reviews.
The Feature articles for this issue starts with Jay Laverty's build review of the KittyHawk Models 1/48th scale F-101A/C. natural metal finishes are tough but Mr. Laverty does justice to the kit! There are great tips about working with photoetch and preparing for the metal finish as well as using Alclad. This really hit home with me as I am almost done with the IPMS review kit of this aircraft.
Next up is Mr. Laverty's build of the hot new Airfix 1/24th Scale Typhoon. This is a large kit and will be built in multiple parts. In this issue, the cockpit and wing spars are assembled and look fantastic.
The A6M2-N floatplane was developed from the Mitsubishi A6M Zero Type 0, for the purposes of supporting amphibious operations and defending remote bases. It was based on the A6M-2 Model 11 fuselage, with a modified tail and added floats. This aircraft was the brainchild of Shinobu Mitsutake, Nakajima Aircraft Company's Chief Engineer, and Atsushi Tajima, one of the company's designers. A total of 327 were built, including the original prototype.
My sample came in a standard size box featuring attractive box art. The contents were well packaged and included; 9 grey plastic sprue, 1 in clear, 1 instruction sheet and 1 decal sheet. This kit has been around for a few years now and has been re-released with differing decal options.
Furball Aero-Design has been producing some awesome decals since being founded in 2012. With this latest release they addresses a somewhat new and popular kit, the HobbyBoss 1/48 scale A-6 Intruder. A little about the aircraft, the Grumman A-6 Intruder was an American mid-wing, all-weather attack aircraft powered by twin jet engines and built by Grumman Aerospace. In service with the US Navy and US Marine Corps between 1963 and 1997, the Intruder was designed to replace the piston-engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Furball has given you the option to build two complete USMC examples from a selection of 13 marking schemes.
This 1/48 scale decal set, available from Iliad Design, provides markings options for six different Spitfires flown during WWII in the China Burma Indian theater. Markings are included for one natural metal, one dark green, and four camouflaged aircraft flown by British Indian pilots. The Iliad set includes multiple national insignias and roundels for each aircraft, along with the red lightning bolts for British Indian fighter pilot and instructor Frank Carey.
The six options are:
Back in 2008 I built a Dragon Su-24, with the Zvezda nose to review Olimp’s Fencer decal sheet. In the ensuing years, the landing gear was broken on the kit. The Fencer was otherwise OK, but the nose gear was trashed. So when they offered Scale Aircraft Conversions’ new Su-24 metal landing gear for review, I jumped at the chance.
What you get is a new nose gear leg, and two main landing gear legs. They’re nicely cast in white metal, and very easy to work with. I include a comparison photo of the Zvezda gear and the SAC gear. They’re identical, except the SAC gear will last a LOT longer.
