There have been many incarnations of the Batmobile from the 1940’s until the latest entry, the Dawn of Justice Batmobile. All of them are cool but this latest is sleeker, armed to the teeth and looks the part. Moebius has replicated this with this kit so let’s jump in and get it built.

Looking through the instructions (gasp!), there are four major parts to the assembly- the chassis and wheels, the upper body, the cockpit and the spoilers/wings.

Robert R. “Boom” Powell grew up in Long Island, New York, the son of a World War II B-24 Liberator navigator who later became known as a comic book artist (Sheena, Mr. Mystic, Tales From the Crypt, etc.). He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania on an ROTC scholarship before going to Naval flight training. He flew Douglas A-4 Skyhawks in Vietnam and later as an instructor pilot in the Skyhawk. Robert transitioned to the RA-5C Vigilante and ended up as an adversary pilot based at NAS Oceana. He also spent time as an LSO for an RA-5C training squadron for three years. Robert retired as a Commander and transitioned to civilian life flying Boeing 747s for Pan American. He remains an active flier today and often flies WWI replicas at the Virginia Beach Military Aviation Museum. It was in the Navy that Robert began writing where he had a regular column in The Hook. His first book was Ben Drew: The Katzenjammer Ace (2001).

This Master Model set provides a quantum leap over the respective parts in the eighties era ESCI, Matchbox, Monogram, and even the nineties era Tamiya series of 1/48 kits. This set is specifically for 20mm cannon barrels without flash hiders. If you are looking for a set with flash hiders, Master, again, is to your rescue as they have released their set 48-128 that features the four 20mm cannon barrels with flash hiders. As it is, this set gives you two muzzle versions of the 20mm cannon barrels sported by the Douglas Skyraider.

Master Model of Poland produces small brass parts for detailing models, be they aircraft or ships. They have parts for aircraft in 1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/72, and 1/144, mostly pitot tubes, refueling probes and gun barrels.

This product is a single pitot tube for a 1/144 F-104. The instructions are quite simple. 10 Cut off the kit pitot. 2) Drill a hole for the brass part. 3) Install the brass part, using CA glue. 4) Paint the part.

This pitot was particularly welcome because the Revell F-104 I built a while back didn’t have a pitot. So I was able to skip step 1. That doesn’t mean I could completely pass it, as I had to use a sanding stick to flatten the point on the nose cone so the drill wouldn’t slip every time I tried to drill the hole. Also, a .3 mm hole is pretty big, considering the size of this part. I stepped down to a .15 mm drill, and it was actually a little large.

This set from Aires replaces the stabilizers on the new Airfix kit. The control surfaces are separate so you can easily model them deflected up or down. A quick check of pictures of the real plane shows them slightly deflected down, occasionally deflected up and just as often with no deflection at all so it is up to you. The detail on the parts is slightly higher than the Airfix parts but if you are planning to model your kit with them not deflected I would probably stay with the kit parts. I did a quick check and the engine fits inside the cowling with no modifications needed.

No instructions are provided as they directly replace the kit parts.

Thanks to Aires and IPMS/USA for the review kit.