Background

Developed in the 1970’s and first fielded in the early 1980’s as the US Air Force’s lightweight multi-role fighter-bomber to replace the F-4 Phantom and A-7D Corsair II, the F-16 Fighting Falcon established itself as one of the most capable, reliable, and cost-effective aircraft in US Air Force history. One of the specialized roles the F-16C inherited from the F-4 was that of Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) - in Air Force parlance known as “Wild Weasel.” F-16C Block 50 and 52 aircraft equipped as Wild Weasels began production in 1991, and still serve as USAF’s primary SEAD platform. Since the inception of the Weasel mission in 1965, the unofficial motto of Weasel crews has been “You Gotta Be S(poofin’) Me” (the polite version), or just “YGBSM.”

History Brief

The Harley-Davidson WLA motorcycle was nicknamed the 'Liberator' because it was used by U.S. soldiers liberating occupied Europe. Harley-Davidson began producing the WLA for the U.S. military in 1940, later entry of the United States into World War II saw significantly increased production, with over 90,000 being produced during the war. The US Army motorcycles were used for police and escort work, courier duties and scouting. They were almost never used as combat vehicles or troop mobility, it was a single-rider design and rarely equipped with sidecars commonly found on the German motorcycles.

According to Wikipedia the model designation breaks down as follows:

This set in designed for Trumpeter’s new Su-24MR “Fencer E” and includes masks for both the clear parts and the wheel hubs. The masks for the clear parts include two part masks for each of the canopy hatches which are nicely curved to match the contours of each hatch. They also include masks for the inner edges for each side of the windscreen, leaving the centers open to be filled in with liquid mask, or as I did with scrap masking from the edges of the set. There are also three small masks for the windows in the ventral strike camera fairing. All of the masks fit great and will make painting the clear parts much easier. I am going to see if I can reuse the hatch masks on the insides of the hatches by swapping sides with the masks after painting.

I believe in the past few years Revell has offered a few of these pre-finished model kits in order to stir the modeling beginner’s pot. First they did this with the NASCAR Snap kits and most recently with offers like the 2017 Chevrolet Corvette. Confronted with no serious painting task to do and well pre-finished body, these kits should stroke the modeling urge of just about any entry level modeler.

This 2013 Dodge Challenger in Foose motif should be a popular subject among muscle car fans sporting Foose custom wheels, Foose custom graphics and sharp two-tone Sublime Green and Gloss Black paint job.

Parts Count (45 total parts):

IPMS USA is grateful to Eduard for kindly providing yet another magnificent example of one of their new items to review, and to the IPMS USA reviewer corps leaders for sending it to me..

This add-on release is designed for the new and vastly improved 1/48 ME-109 series. This propeller and spinner set is designed to be used on the ME-109G-6, but also works on the G-5 and probably others.

The six-part set (including the prop installation Jig) makes easy work of a tough task. The spinner is better defined than the kit plastic, as are the propellers and the hub and backplate. Also included is a prop shaft with a highly-detailed castellated installation nut and hollow gun tube. This would be a great set for a diorama!