Designed for the Trumpeter/Hobbycraft 1/32 F-105G is Aires’ new cockpit set, which is comprised of 33 gray resin, one clear resin and almost 100 photoetch parts. Casting is flawless, which is normal for Aires. The photoetch has nice relief.

I sanded the cockpit and sidewalls down and test fit them in the Trumpeter kit. The fit is good and not much thinning will be needed. You will need to sand the pour area off of the bottom of the cockpit. The test fit did show that the back of the cockpit interferes with the bomb bay in the kit. This was easily remedied by cutting the back bottom portion off of the kit at an angle and the fit tightened right up. The sidewalls required a slight trimming but fit tight and looked great.

Big Cutlass… Part Deux

Well, shiver my swashes and buckle my timbers…at last. The finishing touches have been applied to this magnificent beastie! The stance of the aircraft can be referred to as a cross between a praying mantis and a Great Dane passing a peachpit. In any case, this has to be one of the most unique carrier aircraft ever produced. Although not the most popular among pilots, I recall reading a pilot report in Tail Hook magazine where comments ranged from concern over a hard landing which would drive the nose gear up through the cockpit floor “doing horrible things to the pilot” to attempts to keep the fuel load in trim being much akin to “sitting on a basketball.” Oh, well, I digress, so on to the build.

Ross, the proprietor of SAC, has been a prolific supporter of IPMS/USA from the inception of his company; not only are his products excellent, but he definitely has provided us with some gems, and we appreciate it!

Released in its standard bubble pack with card backing, (with the shield of the only true Air Force Command (SAC) for backdrop (ha), this set is a simple but important addition to anyone building Roden’s new T-28 kit. I was surprised to see my name written on the header card… until I realized it stood for “Roden”, not “Rod”! Alzheimers is real…

The kit nose gear in plastic is to scale, which means if you put the required nose weight in to keep the nose on the ground, it will (over time) bend and eventually break off.

Keep them coming, Bombshell Decals! The decals Bombshell produces is what the current industry needs, nose art of pinup girls and nicely done! They inspired our service men under wartime conditions and appear to carry on some sort of inspiration for modelers to recreate these aircraft in miniature. There is absolute minimum flash in these decals. No trimming is necessary but a reminder that they should be placed on a smooth finish, preferably glossy. All the numbers and letter designations big and small do not have flash background extended around the complete decal. The flash is a center band enough to maintain character spacing and alignment distance. There are no signs of color overlap, which makes the decals crisp and clear. This is very obvious just looking at the nose art ladies. You can actually see blended skin tones and hair highlights.

Unlike a lot of the white metal landing gear sets produced by Scale Aircraft Conversions, this is more than just a straight replacement for the landing gear provided in the Academy/Italeri Hawker Hunter kits. This set corrects a couple of errors in the kit; namely, the undersized main wheels and the length of the main gear legs. Among the 16 parts, you are also provided with a much more detailed nose wheel, and the detail on many of the other parts is superior to that of the plastic parts. The oleo scissors are also provided as one piece, rather than the two-piece affair provided in the kit. The one-piece unit should therefore be much easier to install, especially for someone like me who is all thumbs.