Earlier this year Airfix released this Dogfight Double set which combines it new Nakajima B5N2 “Kate” torpedo bomber and its new Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat kit. The Dogfight Double kits are designed to allow the modeler to depict aircraft from a specific historical incident by providing markings for two specific aircraft in the kit. This set is designed to commemorate a confrontation that occurred on June 4, 1942 when Wildcats of VF-3 intercepted Kate torpedo bombers during the second air attack on the USS Yorktown. The kit decals provide markings for the Wildcat flow by LCDR. Jimmy Thatch, the commanding officer of VF-3 during the afternoon raid and the B5N2 Kate flown by Lt. Jouchi Tomonaga of the Hiryu. The box art depicts Thatch’s shoot down of the Kate, but not before Tomonaga launched his torpedo towards the Yorktown.

Last year Airfix released a new kit of the B5N2 Kate, the Japanese Navy’s primary torpedo plane for the early part of World War II. The kit includes an option to depict the aircraft with the wings folded or with them fully spread. This set from Scale Aircraft Conversions includes nine drop-in replacements for the kit wing-folds and landing gear.

This is a new version of many Riich Universal Carrier’s and is the Airborne Version. The Universal carrier was changed to reduce its weight to enable it to be carrier in the Hamilcar Glider. This included removal and reduction of the armor plate and removal of all unnecessary equipment.

I had built the Tamiya Universal carrier many moons ago and I thought that was a great version but this excels in every area and now I must go and buy the other version of the Universal carrier released by rich.

The kit contains

• 7 sprues molded in light grey styrene
• 1 clear sprue
• 3 Photo Etch sheets
• 32 springs
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet.

Construction

The kit is includes a lot of unrequired parts as these are for the standard Universal carrier.

This book arrived and I must say that I was impressed from the outset. The quality of the book and the material contained inside is typical JaPo. The title sounds like it is just about the Czechoslovak unit, No.311 Squadron, but this book is about a whole lot more than that.

The B-24 was the most produced American airplane in WWII. Its use by Coastal Command is better known in England but not so well known in the US. The use of the Liberator as a precision bomber in the US has overshadowed the vitally important mission of U-Boat patrol. This book fills that void.

JaPo is well known for packing their books with a plethora of information. This one is no different. There are 320 pages of text, photos and color profiles. There are 550 photos with a number of them in color. The 70 color profiles are really impressive and show the differences in turrets, radar, antennas and anti-shipping ordinance.

THANKS VERY MUCH to our friends at Eduard for sending IPMS USA another of your huge line of resin aftermarket kit improvements, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is a specialized iteration of the Sniper targeting pod as carried by the Harrier Mk 9. Included in the set are the pod body, forward sensor section, three clear resin parts ( three protective glass fairing covers), and a photoetch set with four brackets and two different end plates. Also included are two separate resin sets of delicate but strong sway braces, and a separate block resin bracket for a different lot number of pod. There is also a decal sheet to finish off!

Detail is fantastic; the avionics cooling scoop is hollow, and the pod fore/aft section mounting bolt recesses are very well done. Eduard have listened and included excellent instructions on all their most recent releases with color and assembly details.

The latest title in the “Spot On” series published by Mushroom Model Publications focuses on a variety of special camouflage schemes featured on F-104 Starfighters from around the world. The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was a single-engine, supersonic jet interceptor developed for the U.S. Air Force in the late 1950s. The plane was remarkable for its speed and set a number of word records; however, it was more notable for its controversial safety record and the Lockheed bribery scandal. Despite these misgivings, the F-104 family of planes was flown by U.S. pilots into the mid-70s, and with more than a dozen countries around the world until 2004, when Italy retired the last of their F-104S planes.

THANKS VERY MUCH to our friends at Eduard for providing IPMS USA another of your huge line of resin aftermarket kit improvements, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is a simple upgrade to the kit plastic that makes a HUGE difference in the blood pressure of the builder. The Hasegaga GR7 and 9 kits’ Harrier hot and cool air exhaust duct nozzles are molded in halves, with an almost-impossible-to-fill centerline assembly seam. These Brassin nozzles come complete as single-cast, seamless ducts with all the appropriate depth and detail we have come to expect from Brassin. The nozzle vanes themselves are EXTREMELY thin and look like the real thing.

The master metalworker of Poland, Piotr, just keeps cranking these things out… THANKS VERY MUCH for sending IPMS USA another of your growing line of turned metal Pitot tubes, and thanks also to IPMS USA leadership for sending it on to me to review….

This is the now-expected, much improved upgrade to the kit plastic. Consisting of 1 metal pitot tube and a radome adaptor directly replacing the kit pitot probe, this is an easy addition to improve the longevity of your kits’ appearance… The usual warning about being careful with the needle-like probe applies.

The Mirage III pitot tube is a multiple- angle, different diameter item; look at the finished product to get what I am saying. There is just no way for us mortals to turn a needle into a tube looking like this with the boundary-layer differences of the actual item. It’s really interesting how this all works, but that’s a physics lesson for others to teach.

The Fw-200 was an all-metal four-engine airplane that was originally designed as an airliner. As World War II broke out, it was modified for use for long-range maritime patrol, reconnaissance and as an anti-shipping patrol bomber in addition to a transport. This airplane has been modeled twice in 1/72 scale by Revell but recently Trumpeter have added the airplane to their line-up. The Trumpeter kit is a great improvement on the Revell kits in both detail and accuracy but as always, Aires/Quickboost have found some areas to improve the kit.

PJ Productions produces kits and resin accessories in 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scales. Earlier this year, it released a series of accessories for the Mirage III/V aircraft in 1/72 scale.

There are only two parts to this set, the RP 825 centerline fuel tank and a pylon designed to fit the Mirage III C or E. The parts are molded in cream colored resin and are nicely molded with good panel line detail. The pour stub on the pylon is easily removed with either a razor saw or by simply wiggling the pylon (as I did). The attachment cleans up very easily with a sanding stick.

With the recent release of the updated Meng 1/35 D9R Armored Bulldozer to include slat armor, Eduard has released a number of photo-etch detail sets to update the kit and add new details. This is a Meng kit so the detail is fantastic but there can always be some room for improvement, especially with regards to the interior.

This update set has one medium fret of photo-etch parts for the kit. This fret has a large number of color panels to replace all of the kit molded-in panels and placards. As usual with Eduard’s photo-etch sets, the detail for these color panels is a huge upgrade over the kit parts. This is partly due to the finer detail of the new parts when compared to the originals and partly due to their ease of use, just remove the kit detail and drop in the replacements.

The Fw-200 was an all-metal four-engine airplane that was originally designed as an airliner. As World War II broke out, it was modified for use for long-range maritime patrol, reconnaissance and as an anti-shipping patrol bomber in addition to a transport. This airplane has been modeled twice in 1/72 scale by Revell but recently Trumpeter have added the airplane to their line-up. The Trumpeter kit is a great improvement on the Revell kits in both detail and accuracy but as always, Aires/Quickboost have found some areas to improve the kit.