The Aircraft

The Boeing 720 was a direct development of the highly successful 707. The 720 had a shorter fuselage and was narrower, making it more cost effective for airlines on the shorter runs. 720s were profitable for Boeing because the development work had all been done with the 707. There were two basic versions of the 720, 720A and 720B. The A had P & W JT-3C turbojet engines, the B had JT-3D turbofans. Many As were upgraded to Bs through changing the engines. 720s were built from 1958 to 1967.

The 720 in this kit was a 720B N7224U, owned by Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas Nevada. The aircraft was called “Caesar’s Chariot”. It was leased to the rock group Led Zeppelin for their 1977 North American concert tour. The plane had a special paint job, with Zeppelin’s “Swan Song” album logo on the tail.

The Harrier is one of the most easily recognized modern jet fighters and has been so since its introduction into the RAF in 1969. It certainly is one of the noisiest, particularly when in VTOL mode. This excellent book is another of the ongoing AIRfile publications covering British aircraft. As in their other books, this volume is full of relevant information and color profiles, this time focusing on early versions of the Harrier. The chapter titles speak for themselves:

These resin parts are designed to replace the exhaust nozzles in any of the first-generation Harrier kits from a number of manufacturers. They are advertised to fit the Italeri and Hasegawa Sea Harrier FRS.1 and the Italeri and Hasegawa Harrier GR.3. Since the Italeri kits are reissues of the ESCI AV-8A/GR.3 and FRS.1 kits, these parts will fit those kits as well. They will also work on the Fujimi AV-8A kit, as that is a copy (not a reissue) of the ESCI kit. These are first after market nozzles available for the first-generation Harriers, although similar items have been available for the second-generation Harriers (AV-8B, AV-8B+, GR.5/7/9) for some time by a variety of manufacturers. They are not the same.

In the Novembers issue of Model Art they start as usual with the special feature. This months special feature is on weathering techniques and painting of aircraft. The article starts of with Tamiya's beautiful 1/32 F4U-1 Corsair. With this model they incorporate post shading, exhaust staining and fuel stains. The next model is the Hasegawa 1/48th A6M2b Type 21 "Junyo Fighter group". This aircraft was originally finished in IJN gray but then was over sprayed with one of the greens that Japan used during the war leaving a blotchy finish. They show you how to achieve this in this section. Next up is the Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk.1. This section covers chipping, masking and some general weathering. Zvezda Yak-3 1/48th is used next. This section deals with general weathering and details of the kit. The next section covers dust. They use the Eduard 1/48th Bf-109E-7 Trop for this demonstration. The last next article uses the Hasegawa 1/48 Henchel 129B-2 "Winter Camouflage".

If you want to dress up HobbyBoss' excellent 1/32 P-61, Superscale decals give you three options for P-61B's based on Iwo Jima from the 548th NFS. Inside the package, you get a page of full color instructions and a nicely done decal sheet printed by Cartograf.

The instruction sheet contains paint and marking schemes for three planes all of which are black with red spinners and cowlings which match the red plane numbers. The planes are:

• "Lady in the Dark", P-61B-1-NO, S/N 42-39408
• "Midnight Madness", P-61B-1-NO, S/N 42-39404
• "Cooper's Snooper", P-61B-2-NO, S/N 42-39454

There are placement guides for the excellent nose art and unit markings and also the national insignia. The nose art in two cases are very well done pin-up girls.

The decals are beautiful and perfectly in register and also include propeller markings, plane data and pilot data. Cartograf makes excellent decals and I am sure these will apply very well.