The latest releases to come across my modeling bench for review are some beautiful cockpit placards in two scales for Luftwaffe aircraft. In my humble opinion, these will go a long way to making an otherwise “plain Jane” cockpit come to life. The sheets include general warnings, notices, manufacturer dataplates, primary instructions and radio labeling. They are in beautiful register, very thin, and must be trimmed from the backing sheet one at a time. They are identical except for scale. I am sure that once you try these and see the spectacular results, you’ll become a fan of these fine products. Visit their website to see these and other fine products.

Most highly recommended.

The J-20 is a prototype of the Chinese fifth-generation fighter. It is called a stealth fighter, and it has many of the characteristics of a truly stealthy aircraft, including occluded intakes, an internal armament store, and radar-absorbent outer skin. As it is now configured, most experts say it isn’t truly stealthy as the engine exhausts are not low-observable technology for either IR or radar. There is speculation that new engines and exhausts will be added after the airframe has moved further toward production.

The prototype flew in January of 2011. Dragon’s kit is now available 6 months later. That’s fast work.

The Kit

At first look, this is a simple kit, but the box art states that it’s for skilled modelers, age 14 and over. It’s nicely molded in flash-free gray plastic with 3 sprues of parts, the canopy, and a tiny decal sheet.

Two Bobs Aviation Graphics continues to release decals to celebrate the special paint schemes that the US Navy is using to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Flight (Centennial of Naval Aviation or CONA). Each decal sheet contains markings for these special aircraft, and a 3” sticker with the CONA official logo. Two Bobs actually has an official licensing agreement with the Navy to bring these decals to us in the hobby world! As always, this Two Bobs release features decals which are thin, crisp, and in perfect register.

This decal sheet covers two VFA-106 Gladiators Hornets from NAS Oceana seen in December 2010.

Pavla has come out with a cockpit and operators station set for the Hasegawa 1/72 S-3A Viking. The big difference between the Hasegawa cockpit and the Pavla one is that Pavla’s also includes the operators’ stations behind the pilots.

This offering is really a quality set of resin pieces – smooth, seamless, and bubble-free. The detail is also very nice and doesn’t need any extra work to bring out the detail; just a little bit of dry-brushing and it just pops out. As with most of the Pavla aftermarket parts, there is some cutting involved. There is a nice sheet included that shows where all the cutting is to be done. They also include the area from the entrance hatch to the cockpit, and that involves the removal of a pretty stout piece of plastic.

The fine folks at Aires and Quickboost continue to add to their line of aircraft detail parts. For this review I will be looking at their set of gun barrels for the Hasegawa 1/48 WWII Japanese Navy N1K1 Shiden fighter.

The Shiden (George) was a late war fighter, considered by many to be one of the best the Japanese used during the war. Hasegawa has several different boxings of this kit on the market today, and this detail set will work with them all.

As shown in the photos, this offering contains a small resin set of four cannon and one pitot tube. The detail on these parts is very good, and clearly a step above what is supplied in the kit. This set allows you to simply paint these parts and glue them in place – far easier than working with the kit parts, and much cheaper than the brass or metal alternatives on the market today.