In November 1942 a Spitfire VB EN830 NX-X of 131 Squadron made a forced landing in a turnip field on Jersey Island. This aircraft was repairable and started being test flown in German markings and colours at the Luftwaffe's central research facilities at Erprobungsstelle Rechlin. There it was proposed that the Spitfire's Merlin engine should be replaced by a Daimler-Benz DB 605A inverted Vee-12 engine; the Spitfire was sent to Echterdingen, south of Stuttgart where Daimler-Benz operated a flight testing division.

Ultracast offers a whole new and unique assembly for the front of your Focke Wulf A/F. The addition of the external weights is quite common on late war Focke Wulf aircraft. Until now they have not been available in model form without the modeler having to scratchbuild them.

This set is packaged in a small zip lock bag on the cardboard backing. The resin is typical Ultracast, molded in a light caramel colored with no blemishes anywhere. There are no pour blocks on the blades. Minimal flash is present on the spinner and cooling fans. Clean up will be easy with a new hobby blade.

The external weights are flawlessly executed and will add dramatically to the spinner assembly. The blades are thin and perfectly shaped. No pour blocks on the blades means that none of the detail will be lost on the pitch change mechanism.

If you’ve contemplated, built or painted any figures you will no doubt run across the name of Mike Good. He is the world’s best figure sculptor. He is well known for the perfect proportions, excellent faces and natural poses.

Mike’s latest work for Ultracast is a Mid-Late War Luftwaffe pilot. Packaged in the typical Ultracast style of a zip lock bag attached with a staple to a card stock backing. In this case the card stock carries a photo of the actual figure painted up from the front. This will be very helpful to the modeler.

The Northrop Grumman X47-B is the demonstrator vehicle for the United States Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System or UCAS. It was developed from the X-47A Pegasus and will be developed into the X-47C UCLASS which will enter service by 2019

The Kit is from the manufacturer Platz, a Japanese Company, and is 1/72 scale. They have made other UAV’s including the Global Hawk. Don’t let this small scale deceive you though, this model is almost 11 inches across with the wings extended. The wings can be built in the extended or folded position with no cutting, something you don’t see on many kits. This boxing also adds two options for weapons, either the GBU-27 or GBU-32 JDAM. I chose to have the aircraft carry one of each.

The kit itself is molded in light grey with recessed panel lines and very faint rivet detail. It has 65 parts and an extensive decal sheet. The box is sturdy and has a nice glossy front. In fact it took me longer to decal the x-47 than it did to build it.

Eduard has done it again. This time, releasing an outstanding resin super detail kit to add to their long list of other detail parts for the HK Model kit of the B-17. Included in this set are four resin highly detailed superchargers and two exhaust pipes to replace the existing models parts. The superchargers are designed to be direct replacement part, so no modification to the kit is required. The only cutting that is needed is to remove the exhaust header coming from the engine cowling and attach this to the superchargers. Remember measure twice and then again before you cut. The instructions are very good in showing what and where the cuts are required.

The only hard part in the kit that I found was to remove the casting carriers from the parts. I use a four inch bench mounted belt sander to quickly remove most of the carrier, then fine tune with a little whittling with the razor knife. It’s ok to mess up a little, it will not be seen when they are installed.