Mention the Rat Fink and any car enthusiast, or fan of 60’s Kustom Kulture, will immediately think of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s infamous anti-hero to Mickey Mouse. Revell originally issued the Rat Fink kit character in the early/mid 60’s and has seen fit to reissue the kit again.
As quoted from Squadron/Signal Publications: "In Action books, despite the title of the genre, are books that trace the development of a single type of aircraft, armored vehicle, or ship from the prototype to the final production variant. Experimental or "one-off" variants can also be included. Our first In Action book was printed in 1971."
In the mid to late thirty's the U.S. Navy was looking for a new high speed, high altitude fighter. Chance Vought brought their design to the competition, the XF4U-1. The Navy was impressed with the design and Vought started on the prototype. During one of the flight tests the XF4U-1 reached a speed of 405 mph and this impressed the Navy enough to order it into production and thus was the beginning for one of the most famous fighter aircraft to come out of WWII.
Model Art Magazine is a monthly magazine that covers aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art started releasing magazines in 1966 and has evolved from there over the past forty six years.
The January issue starts off with a couple of small features. The first is the "New Item Special". The first is Fine Molds new release of a 25mm gun in a single, double and triple configuration, next is the Tomy Tec 1/144th F-15 S/MTD and YF-15A and last is the Trumpeter 1/35th Russian Tank Destroyer object 704. Look for these products to be released soon. Next is Mr. Hobby is releasing a new water based acrylic based paint and last is a 1/32 scale metal desktop Bf109F cutaway.
Aires’ F9F Panther wingfold set comes in a bubble package, consists of 10 parts, and is made for the Hobby Boss F9F kit #87249. The pieces in the package are very nicely done and look great.
To install the Aires sections, about 1/4 inch needs to be cut out of the kit’s wings. I “under-cut” mine (slightly less than a full cut) then filed them down until I got a good fit. I had to thin the Hobby Boss leading and trailing edges on the inside of the wings to get a good fit for the resin parts.
Each fuselage side of the wingfold has 3 small tabs, and each wing side has two---these slide into the 3 on the fuselage side---just like the full size machine. But be careful; they’re very fragile. I broke one side sanding the joint and had to carefully glue them back on.
I used CA glue to attach the resin parts to the plastic and sanded them to blend in. Most panel lines lined up but a few didn’t.
The USS Essex was commissioned in October 1992 and is currently serving in the USN. LHD stands for "Landing Helicopter Dock". This vessel has the ability to launch helicopters along with Harriers and Ospreys. The one thing that makes these vessels unique is the ability to also launch AAVP, LCAC and LCU's from the well deck.
Hobby Boss provides the kit in a sturdy cardboard box that is stuffed full of plastic. There are twenty nine sprues of plastic, three photo etch frets, two decal sheets a twelve page instruction sheet a two page color paint guide. One note about the color guide, they list Mr. Hobby, Vallejo, Model Master, Tamiya and Humbrol paints. There is one mistake where they call for XF-58 olive green which is supposed to be the deck color. I believe that they meant XF-53 Neutral Gray which is what I used and was a pretty good match.
Included with this review
Cyber-Hobby’s Sea Vampire kit is a variant based on their Vampire FB.5 kit, with the inclusion of additional parts unique to the carrier-capable version. All parts are beautifully molded and the engraved panel lines are sharp and precise. (See Parts photo) The use of slide molding allows a huge amount of depth in the parts, which shows up in the hollow tail booms and underwing fuel tanks. The kit gives the builder the option of retracted or extended gear, open or closed canopy, and raised or lowered flaps. The heart of the aircraft consists of an upper and lower half, which makes up the fuselage and wings. Sprue gates for several parts are on the inner mating surfaces so when they’re trimmed off there’s no danger of marring the surface detail.
Pro-Modified cars are some of the most killer machines on the planet! I mean what is not to love about an old muscle car that has been stretched, chopped, and a throwing a HUGE powerful engine under the hood? They combine power, speed, coolness and creativity into some crowd pleasing machinery. Dick Brown Motorsports runs this beautifully modified 1955 Crown Victoria with a stretched Boss 429 engine. I have no idea the last time this monster raced. I know it was driven by Norm Wizner, who also appears to be a custom builder as well as a driver. He runs a customizing shop that has a 2005 copyright on it and all the links on the bottom page were bad. I was able to find two photographs of this real machine and only one of them had a date on it…..2011. Norm must love the Fords. In 1987 he built the Mega Ford to take on the Chevys on the circuit.
For those of you who haven't seen them, SAM Publications has a series of books they call Datafile which are devoted to a particular aircraft and also have a modeling section. The newest one is No. 19 and deals with the General Dynamics F-111 series. There are 12 chapters dealing with all things Aardvark. The chapters are listed below:
Hobby Boss continues to release new and interesting military subjects from China’s People’s Liberation Army. If you look at their catalog, over the past several years they have released a variety of kits based on armored cars, for example, this kit is similar to the Hobby Boss kit no. 82485, Wheeled Tank Destroyer, though the vehicle for this kit is a later variant. The HJ 9 missile system is paired with a WZ550 APC. It entered service in the 1990s and was first seen in public in the Beijing military parade in 1999. There is a crew of three and can be controlled from inside the vehicle. It appears that it’s still in service and in production.
This is part 4 of our long review of Eduard PE parts for the HK B-17 kit. The usual thanks to Eduard for providing us these sets…
The radio compartment on the B-17 had a large clear panel over it. On earlier aircraft, including some “G”s, the cover would drop down and slide forward, providing an emergency exit in case of ditching or belly landing, and was also provided with provision for a .50 caliber hand-serviced weapon. On later “G”,s such as the HK kit, this window could be removed, but was fixed in place, along with a standard “through the plexiglas” gun mount for the gun. Made for a much-less windy situation for the crew at -60 degrees below farenheit wind chill…
