Aerobonus continues to expand its range of pilot/ejection seat combos with this Crusader pilot seated in his Martin Baker Mk7 seat. The arms and head are separate attachments, allowing for some variation with the positioning of each attachment. The detailing of the g-suit and survival vest easily defines these garments as separate from the flight suits. All the belts, straps and buckles are minutely detailed. The separate arms and head allows you to more easily position them after the seats are installed in the cockpit, so that they’re not interfering with the fit, and more realistically seated in the cockpit.

The only omission is that there’s no oxygen mask included. If one is needed, an option would be to use the head from the kit’s pilot, with its visor down and the mask strapped to the pilot’s face. The drawback is that the kit pilot’s head is larger, so some reshaping, especially in the back, will have to be done. Or, you could trim the helmet away from the mask if you wish to attach the mask to the vest. Test fitting the seat into the kit’s cockpit indicated a snug fit, so some light trimming will insure a good match.

Also included are the overhead ejection pull chords. One must exercise extreme care when removing these very thin parts from the carrier block, and removing the flash from inside the loops. Past experience has taught me that they break at the slightest touch, so wire grab handles were substituted.

Once primed, painting is best done by hand and brush, with some repainting and re-repainting invariably needed to get down into all the nooks and crannies. The detail on the pilot and the seat is realistic, well defined and easy to distinguish, so painting all the different straps, harnesses and attachments is not difficult. I left the head off the torso to make painting the seat area behind the head easier. Crusader pilots wore flight suits in a variety of colors, both in and out of the combat zones, so take the set’s painting guide with a grain of salt and do a little research to come up with an interesting subject of your choice.

Compared to the mildly accurate kit seat and pilot, the Aerobonus set is infinitely more detailed and realistic. They’ve done an outstanding job of providing realistic crews and ejection seats for an increasing number of 1/48 aircraft, and they’ve been well worth the wait.

Thanks to Aires Hobby Models and IPMS for providing the review samples.