The AN-2 “"Annushka" (NATO designation “Colt”) is a throwback from a very earlier age as a rugged biplane used in a STOVL role. The Hobby Boss kit is a nice replica of this plane, yet there are some details that require improvement. Hobby boss provides the option of having the cowl flaps open or closed. Quickboost offers a set of replacement cowling flaps in the open position which are much thinner and have slightly more detail; they are intended to replace kit parts – E49, E50, E53 and E54.

These parts are not quite a drop in fit and required me to clean up the opening in the cowl where the flaps fit; this is due to the accurately molded side pieces of the flaps. The cowl openings are tapered and needed to be squared in thickness to allow the flaps to fit. I ended up enlarging the opening in the longest dimension to achieve a good fit. I used gap filling CA to glue the flaps in position, the slow set allowing me time to work the flaps into the desired angle.

Eduard has released this set of photoetch to enhance the new Academy F-4B in the cockpit and canopy areas. The set contains one fret of brass that details the canopies, canopy sills and areas around the canopies. A second colored fret details the instrument panels and interior of the cockpit and is of the self-adhesive type.

The set has excellent instructions. To use the preprinted side panels you will have to sand the kit panels smooth. The same process is done for the rear instrument panel. The front instrument panel is all photoetch and does require some bends. The sidewalls in the kit are very nice, and the replacements are very nice also. This, to me, is a modeler’s choice as both options are great.

The highlight of these photoetch interiors are the instrument panels. They are multi-part affairs that give depth and create great looking instruments. These were flat coated and then small drops of clear were added for the glass.

Scale Aircraft Conversions’ 1/48 Gloster Javelin landing gear set is a full replacement in white metal for both main gear legs and the nose gear. In many cases SAC will assemble some of the kit parts prior to casting; however, in this case they have cast the parts individually. Additionally, they have also cleaned up the gear and filled the sinkholes that were present on the original plastic parts.

The main gear consists of four parts for each side: a main gear leg, two retraction arms and compression scissors. The nose gear consists of the gear leg with one side wheel-cover, the opposite side wheel-cover and a retraction arm.

Detail is crisper on the metal gear than on the kit’s plastic parts. The replacement parts are a drop fit with no issues what so ever. The replacement for kit part G21 needs to be threaded through an opening in the existing kit parts, but if you take your time and do this carefully you should have no problems.

History

Sir Geoffrey DeHavilland began designing airplanes before World War I, and although his first effort, the No. 1 Biplane of 1909, crashed on its first flight, his subsequent designs all made up for his initial failure, and he went on to become one of the world’s foremost aircraft designers. His most famous product during World War I, the Airco DH-4 and later variants, became a mainstay in both military and civil aviation after the war, and by the mid twenties, his new company, DeHavilland Aircraft, was producing substantial numbers of the DH-60 Moth, a light biplane designed for training and touring. This was an open cockpit tandem type powered by a variety of engines, some designed in DeHavilland’s shops, and it served to establish DeHavilland’s reputation for producing light, economical, safe, and efficient training airplanes for civil use.

Much has been written about the world's most successful rocket powered research aircraft, the X-15. This airplane was designed to be a vehicle to provide aerodynamic, flight dynamic and structural data for use in the future development of hypersonic aircraft, all before anyone had even broken Mach 3. In October, 1954, NACA decided on the need for a manned hypersonic research vehicle, one that would fly up to Mach 7 and over 126,000 feet in altitude. By the end of the program the X-15 had reached a top speed of Mach 6.7 and an altitude of 347,800 feet during the course of 199 flights.

The authors; John Anderson, curator of aerodynamics at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Richard Passman, chief aerodynamicist on the Bell X-2 have crafted an excellent introductory story for this aircraft.

Basically, they do this by explaining the X-15 and how it worked, then going into details of the twelve pilots who flew this machine. The six chapters are: