The Aircraft

Hughes Aircraft originally developed the OH-6 series of helicopters. With corporate takeovers and sales, the MD 500 series is built in Mesa Arizona by MD Helicopters. The OH-6J was built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan.

The original OH-6 was called the “Light Observation Helicopter”, which became “Loach”. The reason for the OH-6 was that in 1964 the US Army was ordered to turn all fixed wing aircraft over to the US Air Force. This meant the loss to the Army of the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog. The Loach was used as a replacement, utilized for forward observation, artillery spotting and air support with rocket pods, TOW or Hellfire, and gun pods available.

The L-39 Albatross is an advanced trainer/light attack double-seat jet aircraft of Czech design that has seen service with over two dozen air forces and several of them are currently being used in the civilian market. Avant Garde Models (AMK) has recently released the first injection model of this significant aircraft trainer in 48th scale.

“Capali” and “Capeti” are special markings used by Hungarian L-39 at the 2004 Kecskemet Airshow. The names of the airplanes correspond to the Canadian TV show “Sharky and George”, however the airplanes camouflages do not match the colorful characters of the TV Show.

Capali sports a disruptive camouflage of green and sand over light blue, with a striking Hungarian flag in the tail, while Capeti is an overall aircraft grey. Both aircraft seem to have their camouflage “peeling off” and showing a shark nose, with teeth and eyes around the nose.

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Quickboost now offers model builders a set of gun barrels and pitot tube to replace those in Trumpeter’s 1:48 scale MiG-3 (Late) kit. The MiG-3 was armed with three machine guns: one 12.7 mm UBS heavy machine gun and two 7.62 mm mm ShKAS machine guns.

The Quickboost gun barrels are impressive. They have hollow openings, the detail is very crisp and there are no injection molding seam lines for the modeler to eliminate. The pitot tube also is impressive. It is thinner than the kit part and correctly detailed for the under wing installation of the late type MiG-3.

The later versions of the Focke-Wulf 190 A series, the A-7 and A-8, were some of the most heavily armed aircraft to fly in the Luftwaffe. To that end, Master provides you with some impressive looking armament in their 1/32 scale Fw 190 A7-A9 Armament Set & Pitot Tube package.

Packaged inside a ziplock bag, the set features instructions and a separate bag with each style of armament packed separately. The benefit of turned-metal barrels is that they are perfectly round with no sprue attachment or mold seam line to remove, and they have hollow ends. The barrels are also very robust, easily avoiding bends during handling, and I need all the help I can get with that problem.

The pitot tube is mounted in different positions on the A-7 and the A-8, and Master points this out in the instructions.

The Fw 190 A-6 was a transition aircraft that had many of the features of the earlier versions of the Focke-Wulf fighter as well as some new items that became the norm on the later versions. As such, it required a unique set of turned-metal barrels. Why do I need turned metal barrels and pitot tube? I’ll tell you why: no seams or mold marks to clean up, your parts are perfectly round, and the brass is strong enough to resist bending and breaking.