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Reviews of products for scale aircraft models.
Product Picture

Sunderland Mk. III
Review Author
Greg Wise
Published on
Company
Italeri
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$78.95

History Brief

The Short Sunderland, one of the most famous seaplanes of World War II. It came into service toward the end of 1938, equipping the Royal Air Force squadrons of Coastal Command. The Mark III turned out to be the definitive Sunderland variant, with 461 built. Most were built by Shorts at Rochester and Belfast, a further 35 at a new (but temporary)[N 3] Shorts plant at White Cross Bay, Windermere;[22][23] while 170 were built by Blackburn Aircraft. The Sunderland Mark III proved to be one of the RAF Coastal Command's major weapons against the U-boats, along with the Consolidated PBY Catalina.

Packaging

Gloster Gladiator Guns
Review Author
Perry Downen
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$4.40

First things first, I want to thank Aires for supplying this Quickboost item for review and IPMS/USA for allowing me to write this review.

The last biplane fighter to enter service with the Royal Air Force was the Gloster Gladiator. Even though it was not a first-line fighter almost from the beginning, it was used in nearly all theaters during World War II. It epitomized the best of the biplane era with an enclosed cockpit, top speed of 257 mph and four .303 Browning machine guns. Two of the guns, with 600 rounds each, were located in the forward fuselage with the barrels protruding between the cylinders of the radial engine. The other two guns, with 400 rounds each, were located just forward of the cockpit, over the wing root leading edges, and they fired between the cylinders via a trough in the fuselage.

Packaging

Fw 190 A2-A5 Armament Set & Pitot Tube
Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$12.00

The Focke Wulf 190 was a heavily armed aircraft with lots of guns and a long pitot tube. The early Fw 190s had their MG-17s in the cowling and wings, along with MG-151 guns on the inner wings. If that isn’t enough, they had a long, fragile pitot tube.

Master provides you with one pitot tube that requires no clean up and has the need strength to hold up to some handling. For the MG-151, Master provides you with the wheel well protective tube as well as the barrel for the gun. The MG-17s for the cowlings are represented by the tips only, while the wings have the barrels. Make sure you don’t confuse them.

All the gun tubes and the pitot tube have hollow ends in them. They are beautiful renditions of the real thing. The best aspect of the turned-brass parts is the complete lack of mold and seam lines. The lack of cleanup makes this an easy addition that will provide a realistic pitot tube and gun set while also providing good strength.

Highly recommended

Packaging

A-4B Self-Adhesive Part 1
Review Author
Walt Fink
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$30.00

This photo-etch detail set provides a higher level of detail for the relatively recent release of the Airfix A-4B kit. It contains two frets of parts. The smaller of the two is self-adhesive with some of the parts pre-painted. These parts are meant largely for the cockpit and ejection seat. The larger fret is meant to be used largely on the airframe and isn’t self-adhesive. The detail on all of the parts is crisp, as we’ve come to expect from Eduard.

Starting with the cockpit, I discovered that the set’s self-adhesive parts had run out of stickum. When I received the set, it wasn’t newly issued, so I’m assuming the adhesive has a shelf life which had run its course in the interim between IPMS receiving the set and my getting it for review. Smaller parts, such as the rudder pedals and seat belts, just fell off the backing paper when they were cut from the fret, their adhesive gone altogether.

Box Art

Bristol Blenheim Mk I
Review Author
Ned Ricks
Published on
Company
Airfix
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$18.99

When the Airfix Bristol Blenheim Mk I showed up on the kits available for review, I quickly put my name in the hat for it. I had seen the results of a 1/48 scale kit and was eager to try my hand and add to my RAF Battle of Britain collection.

A few paragraphs of history: The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War.

It was adapted as an interim long-range and night fighter, pending the availability of the Beaufighter. It was one of the first British aircraft to have all-metal stressed-skin construction, to utilize retractable landing gear, flaps, a powered gun turret and variable pitch propellers. A Canadian-built variant named the Bolingbroke was used as an anti-submarine and training aircraft.

Package

F6F Hellcat ‘Flaps Down’ Set
Review Author
Keith Gervasi
Published on
Company
Res-Im
MSRP
$13.00

This set by RES-IM is for the Eduard 1/72 Hellcat series and if you like posing your cats with the flaps down then this is the set for you. The small zip lock bag contains 3 resin plugs with all 18 parts on them. The flaps are on one, hinges on another and a new inner wing surface on the last. The parts can be removed easily BUT, care must be taken when removing as the hinges are small (one of mine tried to get away!) and the inner wing surface is pretty thin.

Package

Hurricane Mk. I Control Surfaces
Review Author
Roger Rasor
Published on
Company
Aires Hobby Models
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$7.00

Aires offers model builders a way to add some extra detail to their 1/72 Hurricane Mk.I by posing the horizontal tail surfaces is a natural deflected position. This aftermarket set (#72310) provides four resin parts that replace the two kit parts (shown in the photo below). By providing separate elevators and stabilizers, Aires permits the builder to position the movable control surfaces at any angle...often slightly drooping when the pilot leaves the control column pushed a bit forward as he exits the aircraft on the ground (which means the modeler should also position the control column slightly forward). As a bonus, the Aires parts are more accurate in shape than the kit parts and provide better detail.

Packaging

English Electric Lightning Landing Gear
Review Author
Keith Gervasi
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$12.95

This is the Scale Aircraft Conversion (SAC) replacement landing gear set for the new tool Airfix EE Lightning kits and I must say that it is a very nice set. I took pictures of the kit parts and SAC parts side by side and as you can see they are pretty well detailed. You do have a little cleaning up to do because of mold seams but this is true with the kit parts also. Having built one of these already, it will be nice to have the metal nose gear for a little extra strength (due to the weight in the nose) on my next one.

The detail on the parts is pretty good and should look very nice after painting. One thing to watch out for is that one of my pieces was a bent a little and had to be straightened out but really was not difficult to do. I highly recommend this set for anyone that is building those kits.

Thanks go to Scale Aircraft Conversions for supplying this for review, IPMS for letting me do the review and all of you for reading it.

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