First, thanks once again to Gary at Squadron for providing IPMS/USA yet another review item. We count on the support of many companies, small and large; Squadron has survived just about every trial and tribulation imaginable for a business while continuing to provide excellent service and products!

With Squadron having branched out into the aftermarket genre over the past few years, their in-house products continue to improve in quality. Such is the case with these propeller and spinner assemblies.

The Revell/Monogram (RM) P-61 was, at the time of its release in 1974, a market-setter for detail. In many ways, it still is, but the kit propellers have a difficult-to-remove seam between the front and rear spinner halves, and there is no propeller mounting boss detail as is very evident on the real item; the RM blades are cast to the front spinner dome. Strong, certainly, but improvement could be made…

Enter True Details. The propeller blades themselves are finely cast with a mounting boss (the actual aircraft’s blades were wooden) that fits tightly into the spinner propeller pitch mechanism when removed from the casting lug. The spinners have finely molded propeller hub detail; all parts are cast in strong gray resin. A swipe with a sanding stick on the prop mounting lugs, touch with superglue (while maintaining alignment and pitch) and you have noticeable improvement over the kit item (True Details on the left, Monogram kit item on the right). Some may lament the lack of a pitch gauge/alignment cradle to assist in assembly; in my case, the Mk 1 eyeball worked fine. One of the blades was slightly warped (VERY thin and in scale), and a second under hot water with light finger pressure followed by a cold water dunk fixed the blade.

In the end, we have excellent, improved P-61 props. This set is well worth acquiring; a solid ten on these, and thanks again to Squadron for the set and to IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review it.