The Kit

Academy provides you with six sprues of light grey plastic and two small clear plastic. The sprues are the same ones that were issued by Hobbycraft, but there is a difference. The difference is the inclusion of three additional items, two cowl guns and a pitot tube made out of turned brass. These items are little gems of work. The guns have hollowed out ends and look perfect. The decals are printed by Cartograf and provide markings for one colorful aircraft. Being from Cartograf they are in perfect register and suitably thin. In essence, perfect decals.

The instructions are easy enough to understand and broken down into twelve steps. The marking option provides a four view drawing that will help you mark your airplane.

There are limitations to plastic molding that resin doesn’t have to worry about. Such is the case of the Italeri MG Magazine Drums. The kit items are nice but they lack the subtle detail on the sides and the handles. Well Quickboost recognized this and has provided us with two sets of magazines. The magazines have the detail perfectly rendered.

Perfectly molded in light grey resin these parts are simple to add to the kit. The detail parts will dress up the interior of the Stuka in an easy and effective way.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can obtain your copy at www.quickboost.net or through your local hobby shop or online retailer. Let them know we sent you.

The Dragon/Revell Ta-154 Moskito is a twin engine aircraft that just begs for detail. One of the easiest things that can be done is to upgrade the exhausts. Now I don’t know about you but I suck at hollowing out exhaust stacks. I can’t even imagine doing it on 24 of them as least not what I would claim as my work.

Molded in light grey resin these exhausts are perfectly formed with hollowed out ends and realistic weld lines. They are drop in replacements for the kit items which are molded solid, not very realistic. The Quickboost exhausts are perfect and easily removed from the pour blocks. Simply remove, paint and weather and install.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review copy. You can obtain your copy at www.quickboost.net or through your local hobby shop or online retailer. Let them know we sent you.

The Aircraft

The post World War II airliner market was rather like the competition between bomber aircraft in the war. Better engines, sleeker designs, more load carrying capability, longer range, were all sought after by the various airline companies both in the US and overseas. TWA bought the Lockheed Constellation, which could carry about 100 passengers on transatlantic flights. Pan American, the other US powerhouse airline bought "Connies", but they also had a long standing relationship with Douglas Aircraft. The Douglas DC-7 could fly New York to LA nonstop, but couldn’t do the Atlantic. The DC-7C could fly the Atlantic nonstop.

Unfortunately for the Connie and the DC-7, the Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8, Convair 880, and the VC-10 were coming into service, and the DC-7C began to disappear.

Airfix. This iconic manufacturer that has come and gone, and returned throughout the years; they have returned under the support of Hornby, a well-established, forward thinking company, delivering what can only be described as world class kits. Reasonably priced, detailed far better than the old days, and coming back with models we have asked for; In this case, we have yet another example of what Airfix/Hornby can do; the Valiant! I have walked around underneath the surviving Valiant back in 1984 when visiting IWM Hendon, and it is a lot bigger than it looks in model form!