History

I’ll have to admit a personal fascination with the story of the USS Indianapolis. I read a magazine article about the tragedy during my high school years, which was probably close to the 30^th anniversary. In July of 1945, the Indianapolis, a Portland-class heavy cruiser, was tasked with the top secret mission of delivering parts for the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. On the next leg of her journey, the ship was struck by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. The ship sank within minutes, leaving almost 900 of her surviving crew stranded in the Pacific Ocean at the mercy of the elements, dehydration, and marauding sharks. After three days in the water, they were finally rescued, but only 317 of the men survived the ordeal.

Here is another great addition to the growing Quickboost line of detailed exhaust parts. Here we see a set for the 1/48 Hasegawa N1K1-J “George” WWII Japanese Naval Fighter

The exhaust set comes in the typical Quickboost plastic sleeve packaging, and contains a single resin part attached to a ‘base plug’ which is easily removed.

The Quickboost set is a direct replacement part for those with the kit, so there is no major surgery needed to use these parts. With some very minor clean-up, they are able to be painted and glued into place. Since these are resin parts, you will have to use your favorite brand of super-glue.

I intend to use this Quickboost seat to replace the kit part in an Airfix A-4B.

The seat is molded in super nice bubble-free resin, with sharp, molded detail of the lap belts, shoulder harness, and oxygen hose. The primary and secondary ejection handles are molded separately and are located on the pour stub beneath the seat pan.

The stiffening corrugations on the sides of the seat are correctly portrayed as standing proud of the metal surface, whereas the kit part has them indented. This is a moot point, since when the seat’s installed they won’t be visible anyway.

When I placed the Quickboost seat into the Airfix cockpit tub, it was apparent that it was too tall---the canopy would never close. Compare the photo of the Airfix seat in the fuselage half on the left, with the Quickboost seat in the fuselage half on the right.