The Mc.202 "Folgore" was the first fully modern (by WWII standards) Italian fighter, and from 1941 onwards, was the best Italian fighter until the arrival of the superb Mc.205 in 1943.

The lines of the aircraft, together with the variety of camouflages it wore, makes it an interesting subject for modelers. Having accurate line drawings, showing panel lines and rivet detail is a good resource for those modelers looking to super detail their next project.

This booklet has 4 pages, all of them fold out (given the size of them, I had to take some pictures in addition to some scans), printed double side with the following line drawings:

One page A3 size for 72^nd scale drawings:

Hasegawa has re-boxed their well-known A6M2b in 1/48 scale. Despite being an “old” mold (at least 10-yr, if not a bit more), the parts still hold really well, with no flash anywhere, petite and fine details, recessed panel lines and perfectly molded parts.

Construction, as usual begins with the cockpit. The only thing I decided to add was to drill the lightening holes in the seat and to add a pair of Eduard IJN steel seatbelts to it. The rest of the cockpit is straight out of the box, down to the decal used for the instrument panel. I was impressed by how good it looks when completed.

I departed from the instructions a bit after finishing the cockpit. Instead of adding the cockpit to a fuselage side, I actually glued the fuselage sides together and then I added the cockpit from underneath. I could see the fuselage bulging a little bit when I introduced the fuselage from underneath. Careful sanding of the cockpit bottom piece prevented the fuselage from bulging.

Background

‘The Baron and his Funfdecker Fokker’ is a re-release of the classic H-190 kit that was released in 1971. It has been re-released through the years several times as kit number 7236 and now here as 1735. This kit was originally part of the Deal’s Wheels (named after artist Dave Deal) series that primarily focused on car caricatures (13 of them), but a companion kit was issued with it under the title ‘Lucky Pierre of the Lafayette Escadrille’ featuring Pierre hanging on to the upper wing of an inverted Nieuport 17. There were also two WWII era airplane caricatures with the ‘Weiner Moldy and his Blown Messa-Schnitzel 109’ and ‘Flt. Lft. Rif Raf & his Spitsfire’. Now, less you think, that these might not have been real, there were actually four show cars produced as life-sized versions of Dave Deal’s model designs. If you get bored, check out the website: http://treswright.vervehosting.com/ .

David Doyle’s latest book continues to expand on Squadron Signal’s long standing In Action series that initiated back in 1971. This is actually the third book to cover the A-26/B-26 Invader in the In Action series. Jim Mesko authored the first in 1984 (1037) followed by Jim Mesko in 1993 (1134), both of which are out of print. This edition by David Doyle adds considerably to the material provided in the first two. Veteran illustrator Don Greer provides the color artwork for the full page length color profiles within this tome. Todd Sturgell provides the line illustrations that depict the differences between variants.

PJ Production has jumped in to help 1/48 Mirage III series model builders. This new release provides you with a Mirage center line RP 825 fuel tank along with the pylon featured on the Dassault Mirage IIIS / RS, CJ, CJ / EZ, and the Cheetah. This set is probably focused on the new Kinetic 1/48 Mirage III kits, but it should also work well on the Academy, Eduard, Fonderie Minatures, Heller, and Hobby Boss kits; along with the older ESCI kit that has also been re-boxed by Revell and Italeri.

Notable is the re-sealable packaging that PJ Production uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. You will want to be careful handling the resin fins as their thinness makes them easy to break or chip. There are no painting instructions included with the small instruction sheet. I did not observe any air-bubbles in the resin parts.