At the time of this writing, it’s been a week since I penned the “First Look” at this amazing kit, and I’ve now logged 19 hours of benchtime on this baby – 19 glorious hours of relatively problem-free building with exquisitely-engineered parts and crystal clear instructions.

Powerplant

Virtually identical to the Spitfire Merlin, with the exception of several parts unique to the Mustang, the engine’s 80-plus parts all but “fell together” with about 3 hours of steady effort. Detail is crisp and accurate, fit is perfect, and it paints up into a real gem. Only disappointment here is the absence of spark plug wiring – which would be an easy add on another fret of PE.

Cockpit

Not sure what the aftermarket guys are going to do regarding aftermarket cockpits for this fella, since Tamiya absolutely nails quantity and quality of detail. Over 1/3 of build time thus far has gone into this pony’s office – clocking in at a hefty 7 hours.

Big Cutlass

All I can say is WOW !!! I have been patiently waiting (most of the time) ever since the rumors of this magnificent release began to circulate, but when the sturdily packed heavy box arrived, it was like Christmas morning in July. I have long known about Paul Fishers’ talents as a master pattern maker and craftsman, but this thing literally blew my mind. Again, the care in packing carefully with copious amounts of tissue is something we’ve come to expect in all the Fisher releases (kudos to Suzy, V.P. in charge of tissue!).

Several months ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Iliad’s book, Colors of the Falcons, a thorough examination of camouflage schemes and colors used on Soviet aircraft during the Second World War. Since I rated this publication very highly, I was interested to see if their decals were as good. I was not disappointed.

The subject of this review is Iliad Design’s newly released 1/48 scale “Milestone Phantoms” decal set. As the title indicates these decals allow the modeler to finish a Phantom as one of several significant production aircraft. These include:

Editor's note: This build includes parts from Quickboost.net as noted below:

• B24 Liberator Oxygen Cylinders, P/N 72--319
• B24 Liberator Turbo-supercharger, P/N 72-307

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this model to SSGT M.G. Hobelman who served with the 376^thHeavy Bombardment Group based in San Pancrazio Italy. SSGT Hobelman flew 38 combat missions from September 21, 1944 to April 15, 1945 manning the nose turret of a B24J. Thanks to his son, a good friend of mine, I had the pleasure of meeting SSGT Hobelman and sharing conversation over breakfast about what he experienced during the war. Unfortunately, “Hobie,” as he was affectionately known passed away last year. I thought often of the stories he told me during this build and will never encounter the B24 in the same way as a result. Rest in Peace my friend.

Introduction

My thanks go out to MRC-Academy for providing this up-dated kit for review and to IPMS USA for letting me do the review. My apologies to Academy & IPMS for this review taking so long - I hate it when my job gets in the way of my hobbies but I had some issues at work for a while there.

In the Box

The box contains 7 gray and 1 clear sprues (including the new sprue "S" with many new detail parts), a nicely scaled, turned brass air data tube, instructions, a full-color (11.75" x 16.5") poster depicting painting and marking placement and a superb new decal sheet by Cartograf. There are about 287 parts but you won't use 70 of them so you'll have a good set of extra bits when you're done.

The instructions are very clear and well organized. There are still a couple typos along the way so pay attention (the lever arms that rotate the pylons when the wings sweep in the right wing in step 6 should be labeled #37 vs. # 36 as indicated.