Now here is something you don’t see everyday, a life raft for an aircraft. Designed for the Hasegawa SBD you have to open up a hole in the side of the kit. This should be fairly straight forward as it is a round access panel. This set is ideal for a diorama idea.

The set contains three pieces of light grey resin. One is the life raft itself, the receptacle in the fuselage and the access panel. Drill the hole and a quick paint job later and your SBD will stand apart from the others. I’m sure you could add this to the Accurate Miniatures kit as well.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Quickboost and IPMS/USA for the review copy

You can obtain your copy from your local hobby shop or by contacting Quickboost at www.quickboost.net.

The P-51B is one of my favorite aircraft. One of the problems is the exhaust stacks are small. The Trumpeter kit was one kit I was waiting for a long time. Quickboost’s offering features hollowed out ends and are direct replacements for the kit items. I can’t drill out the exhausts on the kit plastic with any precision so the only thing to do is to use the Quickboost set.
Removal is quite easy with a few swipes of the saw or knife blade. Painting is all that is required to make this update set perfect for your model.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Quickboost and IPMS/USA for the review copy

You can obtain your copy from your local hobby shop or by contacting Quickboost at www.quickboost.net.

Anyone who knows me knows I love the Bf-109 so when given the opportunity to review this set I jumped. Aimed at the Academy G-14 this is molded in light grey and clear resin, the cockpit set consists of ten grey resin pieces, one clear resin piece, a fret of PE and a clear acetate film. The level of detail is exquisite.

The resin side walls contain some of the best looking detail I’ve ever seen in a 109 cockpit. The modeler will have to do very little to get a great looking cockpit. Simply adding some PE parts and a good paint job would make this a good first upgrade for someone breaking into the aftermarket for the first time. One unique thing is the inclusion of a clear resin piece for the head armor. This ensures that the thickness of the armor panel is quite appropriately thick. Simply add a piece of PE to the top of it and the look is complete.

Molded in light grey and cream colored resin, the cockpit set consists of eight resin pieces, a fret of PE and a clear acetate sheet. The level of detail is exquisite. How they molded the control stick to the floor I will never know. These guys are incredible.

The parts breakdown is very logical. The instrument panel is a three piece affair incorporating a resin background, clear acetate film and a PE front. This makes for quite a nice looking cockpit. The rest of the cockpit builds up pretty conventionally, however the detail is anything but conventional. It is superb.

The cockpit will add dramatically to your Corsair. With a little bit of work I’m sure you can use this set in other kits as well.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy

This, being the third release (all written by Jim Sullivan) of the “Corsair in Action” series, I was curious and pulled the previous releases for comparison purposes. Not surprisingly, the quality level became better with each book marketed. The first one (1029) consisted of 50 pages, the second one (1145) offered 58 pages and aside from front and rear covers and the center spread, there was no color within. The latest offering contains 64 pages, and is loaded with both color photos and profiles, artwork by Dan Greer. I find the format similar to the “walk around” series also from Squadron Signal.

The text is well written and begins with the early “bent wing birds” during the golden age of aviation, proceeds through the “Birdcage” versions and each later mark and dash number is portrayed. Not only military aircraft (U.S. and other), but the Air Racers are covered along with other survivors.