Ultracast has been providing replacement wheels for quite some time. The latest offerings are all designed for the Mosquito. What sets Ultracast wheels apart from the rest of the replacement wheels is the bulge. They are realistically bulged and will add an appropriate weight to your model.

Perfectly molded in light caramel color, there are two wheels per set that are molded with unique treads. The pour blocks are small and placed in an inconspicuous place, the flat spot. Adding them to your Airfix, Monogram or Tamiya model is very easy. Remove the wheel from the block, clean up with a sanding stick, then paint and add.

Also when you order from Ultracast directly you will have to add $9.95 CDN for shipping and handling world wide.

Lifelike Decals has produced another sheet for the Hasegawa/Minicraft/Academy and Eduard 1/72nd B-24s.

Contained in a 6x9 Ziploc baggie, the first thing you will notice is two A4 sized single sheet full color instructions. One sheet contains the front with the profile drawings and the back page has the plan views and references listed where Lifelike got their information from. This is a particularly good idea because if you wanted to verify the information you could. The other thing this does is it allows Lifelike to tell you what they saw. Lifelike is not afraid to make an informed guess if they don’t know something. But unlike other decal companies, Lifelike will tell you if they don’t know something.

The Typhoon was an impressive air to ground fighter. It was made even more formidable with the underwing rockets that it carried. Brassin has taken notice of the this piece of armament and given it the Brassin treatment.

Eight resin missiles are provided in dark grey resin. The pour blocks on the rockets is quite small and will easily be removed. The rockets themselves are perfectly straight and have no mold lines to remove so you know they are perfectly rounded with no work.

What will require the most work will be the photo etch which is supplied on a fret of nickel plated photo etch. The hardest part of the whole upgrade will be folding the mounts which are in photo etch for realistic look. There are two mounts per rocket so that is a lot of photo etching. The electrical connectors and the flutes are easy enough to add.

After that it is just a matter of adding them to the aircraft.

The P-47 just begs for nose art with that big cowling out front. That is exactly what ground crews did and Lifelike has captured in this latest release.

Designed for the Tamiya, Hasegawa, Academy or Revell/Germany kits, the decals and instructions are packaged in a 6”x 9” inch ziplock baggie. The instructions themselves are printed on two A4 pages with full color profiles and plan views. They also include a reference section so if you want to see the real aircraft all you have to do is find the book or website. There is another half sheet that has the stencil locations on one side. I love the instructions. A little history of each aircraft and the markings are included for each aircraft.

Lifelike has no problem letting the modeler know what is known and what is conjecture. That is a very unique approach to decals. I personally like that. They are not afraid to make an educated assumption for the sake of including a peculiarly unique aircraft.

When I was first assigned this review I started four P-51D kits thinking I’d get a jump on things, but when the decals arrived I discovered they were meant for two P-51Bs and two Ds. So much for planning ahead.

The decals were on register and looked great in the package. The four aircraft represented are:

• Aircraft #1: Malcolm Hood P-51B “Salem Representative” flown by Lt. Ralph K. Hofer of the 334FS/4th FG.
• Aircraft #2: P-51D “Sky Czar” flown by Capt. Fred Munder, Jr. of the 381FS/363rd FG
• Aircraft #3: Malcolm Hood P-51B “Big Mac Jr.” flown by Capt. John Brown, Jr. of the 382FS/363rd FG.
• Aircraft #4: P-51D “Nancy Lee” flown by Lt. Richard Baggett of the 402FS/370 FG.

Although there are markings specific for four aircraft, there are common decals for only one. To use the other three nose art markings I used the individual kit decals for the stars and bars, prop markings, walkway stripes, etc..