Two Mikes has built a business by offering details for jet aircraft that few if any companies offer. As I undertook a build review of the 1/48 Eduard Su-25 kit (ex-OEZ, now KOPRO plastic), owner Mike Reeves generously provided two of his details sets toward the effort
Two Mikes has built a business by offering details for jet aircraft that few if any companies offer. As I undertook a build review of the 1/48 Eduard Su-25 kit (ex-OEZ, now KOPRO plastic), owner Mike Reeves generously provided two of his details sets toward the effort.
Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) has been releasing a large selection of metal replacement landing gear that are essentially metal copies of the kit landing gear. These are helpful when you have a lot of weight bearing down on the plastic landing gear. This set is a direct copy of the detailed landing on the Revell (ex-Monogram) Frogfoot. SAC generously provided a review sample to replace the landing gear in the Eduard Kit (KOPRO/Ex-OEZ Plastic) which is rather under-detailed.
With the SAC set you receive all of the same parts as are provided in the Revell kit and they are a direct copy. I did notice that one pair of actuating rods were not completely molded, missing the attachment point. This was a minor issue and easily fixed. You will need to clean up the mold lines with a fine needle file.
Airscale Decals is evidently new, at least within the last year, and their website shows plans for numerous waterslide decals of instrument dials and panels for various 24th and 32nd scale aircraft, Allied and Luftwaffe. I note that placards and data plates are scheduled for future release. I don't do 24th scale, but happened to have a couple Hurricanes around, well, because one can never have enough Hurricanes.
Editor's note: decals sheets reviewed are shown in photo starting at the bottom and moving up in display: 1/24 Generic Luftwaffe - AS24LUFT; 1/24 Focke-wulf - ASA24FWA; 1/32 Generic RAF - AS32RAF; 1/24 JU-87 - AS24JUA .
Introduction
The author, John Weal, has written a number of books on the wartime career of the Focke Wulf FW-190 and its pilots, and this book fills a gap that needed to be filled, that of the Defense of the Reich units that operated mainly over Germany from mid-1942 until the end of the war. The book mainly covers the activities of JG 1, JG 2, JG 4, JG 26, JG 76, and JG 301, and is confined primarily to the radial engine variants, from FW-190A-4 through FW-190A-8. These units operated primarily against American 8th Air Force bomber formations, and they were highly successful until the introduction of the long range P-47’s and P-51’s, which tipped the balance in favor of the Americans.
Not too long ago I reviewed a different set of decals from Bombshell with the same theme but for a different aircraft and they proved to be everything good I wrote about them and more. This series of decals are specifically for these particular P-47’s, which incorporate two separate sets – Part 1 and Part 2. I am reviewing Part-2, which contains more of the famous icons in the field of “Nose Art”. This set depicts “Rain-Dear” and “Phil Darling” and has a couple of beauties ready to be displayed and to enhance your scale model. Looking very close at these decals, you can see that the registry is spot on and the colors are fantastic with no bleed through and the details are sharp and crisp. As with other sets from Bombshell, the decals have minimal carrier film and are somewhat thin which allows them to conform easy but strong enough to not tare with proper handling.
The E-3 Sentry is a logical follow-on to the earlier US Air Force EC-121. Of course the Sentry has better radar, more room and a more reliable aircraft. The basic airframe is the Boeing 707-720 with the JT-3D engines. When NATO decided they needed an airborne command and control system, they bought 18 Sentries. It’s of interest to modelers that the 17 remaining NATO Sentries are registered in Luxembourg, which has no other aircraft. In fact they don’t have an air base, so the NATO aircraft are based at Geilenkirchen, Germany.
This is the third issue of the basic E-3A from Minicraft, along with their Boeing 707s, C-18 and E-8 JSTARS. The mold is several years old, but it has been well maintained, with crisp edges and almost no flash. All sprues are in separate plastic bags which reduces lost parts, breakage and scratches on the clear parts.
Bombshell Decals are a new product to me. I was pleasantly surprised to find the set I received for review to be very colorful and in good registry and covering two aircraft of one of my favorite modeling subjects, the Republic P-47 D Razorback.
One is an aircraft of the 352 FG at two different periods of World War Two. The main difference between the two is that one has the national insignia with a red border and the other with the blue border plus the number of kills.
The second aircraft is the Belle of Belmont of the 56 FG with invasion stripes, not included on the decal sheet. Both aircraft have the very suggestive and colorful nose art common on warplanes of the era.
The instruction sheet is in full color and showing the port side, top and bottom placement of the decals as well as an FS 595 color guide. Your model kit will provide the required stenciling decals.
The Victor was the second of the three “V Bombers”, Valiant, Victor and Vulcan, flown by the RAF in the nuclear strike role. When Surface to Air Missiles came onto the scene, the Victor became a low-level penetration aircraft. With the advent of the Blue Steel stand off missile, the mission became more feasible, but still sporty. This is when the camouflage changed from white overall to grey/green upper surfaces.
