The Academy 1/32^ndscale F-16I Sufa is a very nicely done kit, with lots of detail and lots of extra bits and pieces. But, Aires isn’t satisfied with good detail, they want great detail. And, that’s what they have done with this wheel well detail set. There are four resin cast pieces to the set, along with four pieces of copper wire to use for various hoses that would be virtually impossible to cast. Although, I’m sure they tried to figure out a way to do it. The main wheel well has so much detail molded in the one piece of resin, that I am still scratching my head on how they made the mold, with all of the undercuts that are present in the casting. What Academy takes seven separate molded parts to do, Aires has done in one. All of the hydraulic lines are there, as are the pumps, wires and junction boxes. There is a casting plug on it that’s a big as the gear well itself that has to be removed, but that’s it.

Quickboost added the top antenna for the tail of the FW 190A-4 to their line of resin aircraft accessories. This latest addition is molded in a cream colored resin, smooth, seamless and bubble free. One thing of note is that they are easy to remove from the mold block taking only a couple of minutes with a saw blade to remove them.

The package states that it is for the Tamiya kit but should work with any kit that you want to covert past an A-3 model. From what I’ve researched about the Tamiya kit, the 1/48^thkit comes with the option to do the A-3 or A-4 but the 1/72 only comes as an A-3. Once again Quickboost comes to the rescue to let the 1/72^ndmodeler have the same options. All that is needed is to cut along the seam line of the A-3 antenna and glue the A-4 antenna in place.

Short History

The Bf 109E-4 was an upgrade from the earlier E-1 and the E-3. Units in the Western Europe Theater requested more firepower, so developers added two MG-FF/M cannons in the wings. The new guns were able to fire explosive rounds, along with two large caliber MG 17 machine guns; this gave the aircraft a significantly increased amount of firepower.

The Kit

When I opened the box, each of the 6 spurs totaling 165 parts and 1 transparency with 9 parts were individually wrapped along with 2 decal sheets. This is the basic 1/32 kit, so no mask or PE. But you can find Aftermarket Accessories (PE and resin) for the kit with a little searching on the internet.

Each spur was clean with very little flash. The first thing I noticed was the control surfaces; the simulated fabric areas look nice. The kit has lots of details; the engraved areas are cleanly made. I don’t see any ejection/sink marks that interfere with visible surfaces.

Ever have to rob a perfectly good kit for just the bombs? I have and I regretted it later when I either wanted to build it or sell it. Italeri has a solution to this problem, bombs and lots of them. The latest release contains two identical sprues of 53 parts each and the decals that go with them. You can build AB70, AB-250, AB500, the ER-4 Bomb rack, ETC 50 bomb rack, PC1400, PD500, SC50, SC250 with Dinort fusing, SC500, SD250, SC1000, SD1700, Pfeife Geraete, 300 and 900 liter Fuel Tanks and WB81 gun pods from the kit. That is a lot of ordnance. There are multiple aircraft that can be armed with this set. Included in the instructions are the load out plans for various aircraft such as the Ju-88, He-111, Ju-87, Hs-129, FW-190, and Me-262. As an example, you can use the bombs and gun pod on Italeri Stuka.

Editor's note: P/N U72-110 = $7.50; P/N U72-109 = $5.50

It was with great anticipation that I awaited the release of the Hobbyboss 1/72 Westland Lynx HAS.3. When it hit the street, I was not surprised to learn that it was a nice kit with some curious accuracy issues as this seems to be typical for this manufacturer. Pavla has addressed two of the major hiccups with these two resin sets and I jumped at the chance to incorporate them in my build for this review.

The first shortcoming addressed by the two sets reviewed here is the lack of BERP rotor blades applicable to this variant. The kit includes the older straight style on a separate sprue just for the rotor blades and this is particularly frustrating as other boxings of this kit have the correct BERP rotor blades – a simple mix up that should have been easily avoided. The second issue addressed in this review is more of a design flaw as the shape of the sponsons is inaccurate and simplified.