Thank you to AK-Interactive for providing a U.S. Navy and Marine Corps World War 2 era paint set in their Real Color line. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to test out some of this new paint line. My review focuses on product application and ease of use. Anyone who builds USN and USMC aircraft and similar subjects from 1943 to the mid 1950’s will appreciate this set.

The 4-bottle paint set arrived in a small box with an attractive weathered motif. The glass bottles each contain 10 ml (1/3 fl oz) of paint, and the caps and bottles are well labeled with background colors matching the paint. The bottles are also low profile making them stable on the bench during use. Read this as “more difficult for me to make a mess!”

Special Hobby has released this new tooled kit of the V-1 Fieseler 103. The V-1 was known by the British in World War 2 as the Buzz Bomb due to the unique noise of the pulse engine. The subject has been covered a lot but not at this scale. The kit includes the handling trolley and some photo etch.

In the box is:

• 3 x light grey sprues
• 1 small decal sheet
• 1 photoetch detail set
• 1 instruction booklet

The kit consists of 3 main sprues; the sprues are very typical of Special Hobby product which are made from a soft plastic. The decals allow you to finish the V-1 in two different versions and paints schemes for three V-1. The instruction booklet is very well laid out and easy to follow.

Construction

Before I started I had decided to build the V-1 on the handling trolley with the wings removed and stowed. Also I opted for a color scheme of the V-1 that missed my Mother’s home in East London in 1944.

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 for the MiG-29. It's more complex than many other pitot tubes because it's got two tiny vortex generator fins, one on each side of the pitot tube. So the package contains the pitot plus a PE fret with the vortex generators.

Installation of the pitot tube is pretty simple. I used the Academy kit for this review. The Academy MiG-29 has a flat spot at the tip of the nose for the pitot. So it was fairly easy to drill a .3mm hole in the center of the spot and glue the pitot in place.

The recent rerelease of Airfix’s catalogue of 1/76 AFVs has generated a little bit of a buzz among Airfix fans, many of whom grew up building these little gems as lads. Now, as adults, they get to harken back on the days of yore with the reboxing of these little beauties. I myself never had much of an opportunity to build Airfix kits in my youth, but have taken to them as an adult. Whether it’s a fiddly older kit, or one of the new-tool ones in the shiny red boxes, getting back into the hobby later in life also meant finding some great new, and OLD, kits to build.

I’m a sucker for Luftwaffe ’46 concepts and 1/144 scale, so when Brengun supplied us with this little bat winged beauty my hand went up immediately.

The kit is petite, very nicely molded and with fine panel lines. Two color schemes are provided on the box, both for hypothetical units serving in 1946. The canopy is a little thick, but there isn’t much of a cockpit provided. I added paper seat belts and a stretched sprue control stick; you could go further if you chose to add some detail.

I thinned all of the landing gear doors and used my fine engraving saw to separate the control surface joints. Assembly is easily completed in a few hours; I spent more time painting and decaling than I did building. I removed the molded-in cannon from the wing leading edges and drilled out the area to accept some sprue – but in looking at my review photos I realize that I forgot to add them…..but I did add a pitot tube using guitar wire.