When one looks at French aircraft of the period immediately before and during World War Two, it is evident that there were two schools of thought when it came to aircraft design! One school was to design elegant, graceful and beautiful aircraft. The other was to see just how ugly they could make the airplane and it still fly and perform the duties it was designed for. This book is filled with examples of aircraft from both schools.

The book begins with a discussion of the main categories of French flying boats and what these categories entail. The “Croisiere” category is the very long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft with a range of 2100 to 2800 miles. The “Exploration” category was the long range maritime reconnaissance with a range of 1200 to 1900 miles. The last category, “Surveillance” had a range of up to 775 miles. Floatplanes are not discussed in this volume.

Scale Aircraft Conversions specializes in white metal replacement parts. Its line of replacement landing gear has been expanded to include a set for the Academy 1/48 P-47D, which has been boxed by Italeri and Eduard too.

The set includes 5 parts, two landing gear struts and scissors plus the tail wheel, finely molded in white metal. These parts are drop-in replacements for the plastic parts.

You can see from the pictures the parts are very cleanly molded and formed. Attaching the struts scissors is very easily accomplished with superglue as regular plastic glue will not work on white metal.

While dry fitting the parts, I’ve noticed that the white metal landing gear struts are molded a little bit shorter than the plastic ones. I was able to tell that when I presented the metal part to the landing gear cover and the alignment pins did not completely line up. Not a big issue and actually the shorter struts represent a combat loaded P-47 better in my opinion.

This accessory is for the Heller Tunnan kit. The parts are replacement pitot tubes.

The Kit

You get two finely done brass parts in a plastic envelope, which is inside another plastic envelope. Good plan – lost parts of this size would be a disaster, not to mention impossible to find. I liked the instruction sheet, it was simple, to the point, and uncluttered.

Assembly

I used a Tunnan I built several years ago. It was great to have these brass pitots, as the plastic ones had been broken off soon after I did the model.

I cut off the little projections where the pitots had been earlier and drilled tiny holes in the wing leading edge.

I painted the brass parts with Testors Aluminum Metalizer.

There is a difference between the left and right pitots, and the instructions are VERY specific about which is which.

A bit of gel-type CA, and a bit of touch up, and the project was finished.

The Product

My sample arrived packaged in the all-too-familiar orange-topped poly sleeve with the typical card insert. After close inspection of the parts, I found them to be perfect. As you can see, the kit parts offer excellent detail; even so, the Quickboost seats are by far superior in detail, and they’re a drop-in replacement. They are easily detached from the pour block and clean up with a few swipes from a sanding stick.

The Bottom Line

I recommend these babies to anyone wanting to enhance his Ju-52 build.

Thanks to, Aires/Quickboost and IPMS for the opportunity to review these nice little castings.

This accessory is for the Heller Lansen kit. The part is a replacement pitot tube.

The Kit

You get one finely done brass part in a plastic envelope, which is inside another plastic envelope. Good plan, since losing parts of this size would be a disaster, not to mention impossible to find.

I liked the instruction sheet, it was simple and showed you exactly where to put the pitot.

Assembly

I cut the remains of the old pitot off and drilled a hole in the wing where the old tube was.

I painted the brass part with Testors Aluminum Metalizer.

I put a bit of gel-type CA on the pitot and inserted it in the hole in the wing. I had enough time before the super glue set up to insure that the pitot was horizontal and straight, after which the project was finished.