This kit is everything one expects from the Special Hobby label – an interesting subject not often kitted, superb casting with no flash, excellent detail, PE and resin parts, fine decals, and a bit of work to get it all together. Those with patience will be rewarded with a fine kit of a subject not easily available elsewhere.

Five sprues with 74 light gray and 30 transparent (yes, this plane has LOTS of windows!) greet one upon opening the box. There is a photo etched fret with 36 larger brass parts and at least that many smaller parts representing the levers. There are a number of extra levers for the control panel, and it’s a good thing. I have big thumbs.

6 casting plugs with 31 resin parts make up the bulk of the cockpit and the machine guns. These are very well cast and come off the plugs easily and with no breakage.

There are 2 pieces of film for the instrument panel, which work well also.

Several months ago, Cyber-Hobby came out with a kit of the Northrop YB-49 in 1/200 scale. They have now followed up on that with a new kit of the Northrop XB-35, again in 1/200 scale. With a wing span of 172 feet, this would be a very large model in 1/72 scale and still a good-sized one in 1/144 scale. With 1/200 scale, the XB-35's wing span is a manageable 10.32 inches in width. There are 70 parts with no flash in their usual light grey styrene and another 8 parts in clear. A few of these parts may or may not be used, depending on which propellers you use, or if you build a flying version or one on the ground. The two largest parts are the upper and lower wing halves, followed by the four propeller nacelles, but you are given a complete interior even if 90% of it will never be seen.

Major Alexander de Seversky, a Russian ace with 13 kills during WWI, defected to the U.S. in 1918, founding the Seversky Aviation Corp. in 1931 on Long Island, NY. Alexander Kartveli emigrated in 1928, joining Seversky as his Chief Engineer. The Seversky/Kartveli team would become the Republic Aviation Corp. which would gain fame with the P-47 Thunderbolt whose lineage was directly traced back to the P-35 as both a combat pursuit fighter and a racer, setting speed records and participating in the Bendix and Thompson Trophy races. If your model collection strives to include landmark or significant historical aircraft, then I would state that it is incomplete without a P-35. Without the powerful P-35 impressing the military and sustaining the Seversky Aviation Corp. through the turbulent 1930s, there never would have been the P-43, P-47, and subsequent series of jets that served lengthy careers destroying our enemies and saving our pilots’ lives.

Thanks once again to SAC for providing IPMS USA the opportunity to review one from their prolific product line…and IPMS/USA for allowing my ham-fisted efforts to continue with the reviewer corps!

This is almost a no-brainer. Roden’s C-124 is an excellent kit. Short-run issues aside, it looks and carries itself like “Ol’ Shaky.” Ask Bondo Phil about his time with the ‘124 – to have crewed (and survived) those birds, even when you knew about plug fouling, engine fires, and general issues on early large aircraft, was a testament to their strong lower gastro-intestial system.

The nickname unfortunately translates to its “sit” on the ground. Even in this minute scale, Roden has engineered the gear to look correct in appearance and substance – and in plastic, it’s just not enough. The nose gear in particular will fail over time. So, what to do?

Thanks once again to our friends from Revell in Elk Grove, IL, who continue their program of re-releasing some of the best 1/48 models out there! Your efforts are truly appreciated by us old guys…good to see this one back.

Yes, this is the venerable Monogram kit, re-released under the Revell banner. Consisting of 125 parts, this was as good as it got back in 1966 when it was first released. In the box, the changes are new decals and a generic instruction sheet. What has not changed is the model itself; it still holds its own with the newer releases from other companies, with the exception of interior details! Box art is a bit of cut/paste; looks a lot like a Korean village below that is exploding in volcanic fashion.