This is another of Master’s growing list of pitot tubes for specific 1/72 scale aircraft. This set continues in the tradition of excellent, quality products from this company. Master’s MiG-23MLD set includes a turned-metal pitot tube and photo etched brass vortex generators. These vortex generators direct air flow when the aircraft is at high angles of attack. If they are placed correctly, this might hold true for your model also. As you can see from the photos, these pieces are much more convincing than the pitot tube supplied in the kit. My only caution would be about gluing the photo etched parts to the sides of the brass pitot tube. I think a little patience will be required since there isn’t much surface area to work with.

As a Battle of Britain aficionado and avid reader of stories of the exploits of Allied pilots flying Hawker Hurricanes (and Spitfires of course!) on the Western Front and in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, it was with keen interest that I delved into this story of the Hurricane on the Eastern Front ― a story with which I was totally unfamiliar. Thus, it was much to my surprise that I learned that the Hurricane was the most numerous Western Allied fighter aircraft serving in the Soviet Union’s army and naval air force units on the expansive Soviet-German front in 1942. Having suffered significant attrition of fighter aircraft during the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin appealed to British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill for replacement aircraft.

History Brief

Allied code-named “Kate,” the B5N2 was a highly maneuverable aircraft for its type, powered by one Nakajima Sakae 21, a twin-row 14-cylinder 1000 hp radial engine. With a top speed of 235 mph, it had a operational range of 610 miles. A three-man crew was standard. Its armament featured one 7.7mm machine gun for rearward defense and payload capacities of either one 800kg bomb, two 250kg bombs, six 60kg bombs, six 30kg bombs, or one 800kg torpedo. Officially adopted in December 1939 as a follow-up of the B5N1, the B5N2 Type 97 proved to be an accurate bombing and torpedo platform and easily found its way to all six IJN carriers in the Nagumo task force that attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the Pearl Harbor raid. The type 97 became the Navy’s mainstay in the early stages of the war wherever it saw extensive action, including combat campaigns in the Solomons, Southwest Pacific, and Indian Ocean.

Kit Contents

Scale Aircraft Conversion’s F.4/F-86 Landing Gear for the Airfix kit contains four pieces, three landing gear struts and a weighted replacement upper intake piece, sealed in a blister pack. The pieces were all nicely molded and detailed; however, they had a bit more grain than the original kit parts.

Construction

I started construction with the weighted upper intake. After weighing both parts on my (perhaps imprecise) kitchen scale, I found that the replacement intake weighed only one gram more than the original. The instructions called for a total of three grams to be placed above the intake. Therefore, I added a bit of additional weight to be on the safe side.

Mark Buchler has been around for several years, making small run resin detail sets for a few kits. His product line is not extensive, but what he does offer is high quality and usually fits the ticket for what is needed. Under the Modelshack label, Mark had a P-61 update set for the Monogram kit that included new cowls and engines. It was taken out of production while new, more accurate, tooling was made using Computer Aided Design (CAD). During the retool, Great Wall Hobby released their new P-61 kit, but it was quickly discovered to have several shortcomings in the cowl and prop area. Modelshack released the updated correction set, which fits both the GWH and Monogram kits, and gives marked improvement to both!