PJ Production of Belgium makes some awesome products and from figures to conversions in all the popular scales. This items is 1/32 NATO pilot seated in his aircraft. The kit is simple with three parts (two arms and body). Cut off the pour spouts and glue the arms on to start. I used a little Squadron white putty to insure the gaps were sealed and then cleaned the putty off with lacquer thinner for a smooth finish. The kit was primed and set aside to cure and we were ready to paint.

LPS Hobby is a Brazilian that recently added three more Republic P-47D decal sets to their 1:72 scale line. This set, # LPM72-16, provides markings for three P-47D Razorback Thunderbolts that sported Malcolm hoods late in WWII. The set includes two small decal sheets that provide all of the unique markings for the three aircraft and enough national insignias and stencil data to do two of the three (National markings from kit decals will be needed to do the third one).

As the photos below illustrate, the decals are nicely printed in vivid, opaque colors by Microscale and everything is well registered. They are printed on thin film like other Microscale decals, and should respond well to mild setting solutions such as Mr. Mark Softer. It is recommend that the decals be applied by ‘floating’ them in place with enough water to keep them from bonding to the surface before they are properly positioned…then gently blotted when they are in place.

The three aircraft are:

Thanks to Neil at HK models for providing the IPMS/USA with this pre-release kit for review. We appreciate and value your contributions and look forward to more releases from your company. Thanks also to the IPMS leadership for trusting me to get this thing done!

As a pre-release kit, I received the HK Models Do 335 without instructions in a basic shipping box. This was a bit of a daunting challenge; could I do it? Of course I whined when I found out the engine compartments and some of the interior were a bit more complicated than I thought. I was subsequently sent a PDF of the basic instructions from the fearless reviewer corps leader, Dave, and I began to breathe again.

Osprey Publishing keeps expanding its Combat Aircraft series with its latest book, F9F Panther Units of the Korean War. I personally think that the F9F Panther is among the most beautiful jets of the early era—together with the F-86 Sabre—so I might be a bit biased on this topic.

Clearly, from the beginning of the book you realize the author, Warren Thompson, is extremely well versed in the Korean conflict, and he is a great researcher. The level of detail and accuracy in his narrative is outstanding. He is really good at combine first hand narratives and mission reports to allow the reader have a sense of the pilot experiences, as well as the overall combat record of each unit, and the strategic situation in the Korean Peninsula during the conflict.

This book, being from Osprey has plenty of pictures; about half of them in color. The book also has 24 gorgeous color profiles by Jim Laurier.

The book is divided in the following chapters:

Thank you to Bert Kinzey and Rock Roszak for bringing back a tremendous resource for the modeler, this time in digital format. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to test out this new and exciting method of researching the F9F Cougar.

Overview

This review of an exciting new format of a familiar product will take three parts; 1) content coverage, 2) how effective and useful the digital e-book format is from a modeler’s perspective, and 3) evaluation of a kit using the modeler’s section. I certainly would expect the first question a reader would ask is, "Why do I want an e-book format?" I like reading through traditional books as much as anyone else, with the page-by-page discovery of storyline or new information. I also have tons of books in my library, mostly residing on stoic-looking bookshelves. This new publication format provides many advantages for the modeler, with few disadvantages, as described below.