First comment: Thanks to Richard at Wingnut wings for sending IPMS USA a review copy of this magnificent kit. Did I say it was “Magnificent”? You better believe it!

Crammed into a sturdy double-corrugated lower, full-color wraparound upper box is undoubtedly one of the most complex, yet simple-to-build, WWI kits I have ever encountered. Box art is excellent, showing two aircraft flying through flak and dropping bombs… Given the reputation of this still-young company, you don’t have to worry. There has been a bit of engineering involved here (duh) to provide excellent fit and, as our British friends say, “Value for Money”.

This review will be for two different sets of machined brass and photoetch fro Master Models. Aside from appearance differences between the guns they were meant to mimic, assembly would be pretty much the same.

Master Models makes some of the nicest brass machining and photoetch I have ever seen. When I combined their barrel set for the German LMG-14 Parabellum with the breech and stock of the weapon in Wingnut Wings LVG C.VI, got them painted and added a touch of gunmetal and smoke pigment you could almost smell the hotgun oil and smoke.

I used CA and a touch of white Gator Glue in this assembly, along with Tamiya red-brown and Model Master Acrylic Gunmetal, with a light dusting and rub of Mig Gunmetal and smoke. I used Model Master Brass for the bullets and Stone for the belt webbing.

The casting of these elevators and stabilizers is as good as the original plastic parts in the kit. The stabilizers have a pocket trailing edge that accepts the rounded leading edge of the elevators perfectly and the fit is better than I could ever do if I had taken the kit parts and cut them apart. The resin is a cream color, but their web site shows some cast in gray, so I guess it depends upon the batch and what kind of resin they were using that day.

I looked through all of my Skyraider references, couldn’t find that many pictures of A-1s with the elevators displaced, except for those taking off or landing. But, if you want your Hasegawa A-1 to have displaced elevators, you really need these. They are a direct replacement for the kit parts.

My thanks to Aires for the review samples and to IPMS/USA these review samples.

Background

The P-43 Lancer was developed in 1938 by Seversky Aircraft Corp. as a successor to their P-35. The new model was larger overall and featured the Pratt and Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial engine with an exhaust driven supercharger. While the airplane possessed good altitude performance, it was apparent that it would not be able to compete with the aircraft then in operation in Europe. Small numbers were produced for the Army Air Corps and some others for export to the Chinese Air Force and the RAAF. In service, the airplane suffered from leakage from the integral wing fuel tanks and combined with the lower fuselage supercharger this caused a number of fires. The airplane was replaced by the larger, more powerful P-47 Thunderbolt.

Editor: Features the Russian captured D-9, "White 16" II./JG 301, "Black 4" W. Nr. 400271 III./JG 2 and "White 15" W. Nr. 600651

Just when you thought you had seen every marking scheme for Fw 190D9’s, Jerry Crandall comes out with a new book on the Dora and decals for newly discovered aircraft.

This sheet contains markings for four different aircraft, one of which was a captured aircraft used by the Russians The other three bear non-standard colors and markings, which was not at all unusual during the late stages of the Spring of 1945, right at the end of the war.

These decals are in keeping with the usual high quality research of Eagle Editions and are perfectly in register, as printed by Cartograf of Italy.

By the way, if you want some good reading and an excellent reference to add to your reference collection, get FW 190 Dora Volume Two, published by Eagle Editions, Ltd. It will give you even more info on these four aircraft.