The SAC landing gear for the Trumpeter 1/48 T-38A Talon kit is a direct “plug and play” replacement for the kit gear with one minor change. The nose gear is one piece for the SAC gear whereas the Trumpeter part is a two piece affair (the nose gear attachment point is separate from the strut itself). I am not sure why Trumpeter did this but to me it seems like it would add a natural weakness in the structure and that joint has to hold the nose of a fairly large aircraft up. The SAC gear cleaned up nicely, with just some minor cutting and filing of excess metal. The top of one main gear had a bit of a pour plug that came off with a sprue cutter and a file.

Great Wall's 1/48 scale F-15B/D kit has generated a flood of commentary on the internet forums regarding its accuracy or lack thereof. Some of the complaints are justified, if sometimes verging into the area of extreme nit-picking, and some are not. This review will not rehash the controversy but rather will concentrate on building what is in the box to best advantage.

My primary references for this project were Reid Air Publications “The Modern Eagle Guide” and Isradecal Publications F-15 Baz. The latter is indispensible for information and detailing on IAF Eagles, and the former is the best available reference on the Eagle in general. The 26 page instruction booklet is fairly well done, although some of the illustrations are a bit vague. Packaging is first rate, especially the missiles. No parts were broken or detached from their sprues.

The FJ Fury series of aircraft has always interested me. I think mostly that’s because they were initially developed along with the F-86. Early decisions by the Navy resulted in their first version having straight wings, but they got their jet first. Of course, research into the information gathered from the Germans at the end of World War II showed that the swept wing was the way to go and the Navy eventually came around to the Army’s (later Air Force’s) way of thinking, resulting in the FJ-2. This aircraft was very similar to the Air Force’s F-86A. Improvements and more powerful engines for the FJ-2 led to the FJ-3, wherein the development started to diverge more and more from the F-86. Yet further developments let to the FJ-4 and FJ-4B Fury.

Each issue of Scale Aircraft Modeling follows a basic design and format. There are usually two Feature Articles, an Aviation in Profile piece, industry news and a series of Compact Build Reviews.

The Feature articles for this issue covers a build of new H-K Models 1/32 Gloster Meteor and a 1/48 Wingman Models Latin American Kfir. The Meteor is from Jay Laverty and is Part 1 of a two part series. Part 1 covers the some issues with the kit and their easy fixes as well as preparation for the metallic finish and several hints and tips towards making it perfect.

The other Feature article is from Brian Wakeman and builds Wingman Models 1/48 Kfir. This is the Kinetic kit with the addition of lots of resin for cockpit, nose and a host of other parts. He finishes the kit in markings for Columbian Air Force with superb weathering.

History Brief

The F6F Hellcat, was a completely new design from Grumman for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. The F6F Hellcat, a single-seat carrier-based fighter is credited with destroying a staggering 5,271 enemy aircraft. In all, some 4,402 F6F-3 carrier-borne fighters were produced up until April 1944 before it was replaced by the F6F-5. This type first flew on 3 October 1942 and it reached operational readiness the following February with VF-9 aboard USS Essex. The fighter’s standard armament was six .50-cal M2/AN Browning machine guns plus six High-Velocity Aircraft Rockets (HVAR) mounted under its wings , while later aircraft had three hard-point’s capable of carrying 900kg of bombs.