The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). The B-17 was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in central and southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields.

Scale Aircraft Conversions celebrated their Silver Anniversary last year, and now have over twenty-five years of supplying resin and white metal parts to model builders. This is the eighth landing gear set from SAC that I have reviewed, and once again, they have provided an excellent metal option for kit-supplied landing gear. This set is intended for the 1/48 scale F-14 Tomcat that was recently released by Tamiya (kit 61114). The purpose of this replacement set is to provide stronger landing gear that is adjustable if necessary to obtain the proper angles. Even with no previous experience in using white metal parts, this set will provide an upgrade that most modelers will have no issue installing.

Over the past few years Airfix has been turning out some stunning kits and thankfully the detail community has been stepping up to the plate to provide details for those new kits. No exception is the Czech company Brengun who has released a nifty detail set for the new tool Airfix DH.82a Tiger Moth series of kits.

THANK YOU to our friends and suppliers at Aires/Quickboost (“QB”) for this excellent improvement set for the re-release by Italeri of the old AMT/ERTL A-20! And thanks also to the reviewer corps leaders for making them available to me to review!

This set takes the kit components and improves them by saving the modeler the trouble and frustration of trying to drill out all the radial exhausts on the A-20G series. The exhaust stubs on the kit parts are separate triangles of plastic as we would normally find from a mid-1990’s kit, remove and place on lightly-marked locating lines. Hmmm… and in each case, the exhausts are not drilled out. A great way to slash your fingers and test your patience.

Moving into the new century: 20 years later, the Italeria kit is the only game in town for a 1/48 A-20. QB not only provides hollowed-out exhausts, but have installed them for you so it’s a true drop-fit swap with vastly improved detail. Need I go further? (I must)

Aviaeology describes themselves on their EBay store as producers of well researched books, decals, decals 'n docs sets, and docs primarily for scale aircraft model makers who work in 1/24, 1/32, 1/48, and 1/72 scales. This is a great description of Aviaeology as they produce first rate decals with exhaustive research and all geared towards modelers.

This set covers 333 Squadron of Mosquito F.II’s and FB.VI’s from 1943-45 and specifically covers 8 different airframes. They are: