In 1984 Richard Staszak authored an excellent publication entitled, “Building and Improving Vacuum-Formed Model Aircraft”. The book was published by Kalmbach Books and was given the item number of 12054 and received the ISBN number of 0-89024-047-7.
Recently Mr. Staszak has released a DVD that is, or all intents and purposes, a complete copy of the original book. In addition, the DVD includes colored pictures and mini-reviews of over 100 vacuformed models from the author’s collection. Current sources for some of the older vacuform kits are also identified as well as new kits from current manufacturers.

Designed for the reigning king of the 1/48 P-47’s, the exquisite offering from Tamiya. There’s no difference between the D and the M wing, so that means they it can be used on any Tamiya P-47 kit.

About the toughest thing to do with a Tamiya P-47 is to get rid of the ejector pin marks. This set takes care of that with the landing gear doors and wheel bays. The castings are in Aires standard dark gray resin except for the covers for the gear struts. Those are in a cream color and much more fragile than the gray castings. The pour stubs on the wheel bays are heavy and could be tricky to remove. It’s pretty much a straight drop, except you’ve got to remove the kit’s wheel bays.

Quick Boost has quickly built a reputation for excellent resin castings at affordable prices. This set is sure to add to that for the already great out-of-the-box 1/72 Hasegawa A-1J kit.

These are direct replacements for the kit parts and my sample was very crisp and bubble-free. They offer a simple solution to the often frustrating, sometimes futile attempt to drill-out exhausts in this scale.

Italeri has been releasing more Italian WWII subjects in both 1/72 and 1/48 scales over the past several years, with mixed success. Several were excellent kits such as the CR.42 and the SM.82 while others, like the most recent Re.2002, were poorly received by some modelers. The recent release of the MC.200 has drawn some negative pre-release publicity as well as comparisons to the well done PCM kit released earlier. Being a sucker for anything in splotchy camouflage, I jumped at the opportunity to try the kit for myself, and found a solid effort with good points and some bad points as well.

The Aircraft

The Vampire certainly qualifies as an “early jet”, being second oldest to the Meteor in RAF service. The Vampire’s twin-boom layout was a result of the low power of the early jet engines. The shorter the tail pipe, the more power the engine could deliver. The Vampire’s original mission was strictly as an interceptor, with only the 4x 20 mm Hispano cannon as armament.