Aires Hobby Models provides a variety of high quality resin products to upgrade, or correct, a variety of models in the most popular scales. They also have a line of crew and pilot figures in 1/72^nd, 1/48^th and 1/32^nd scale. These figures are relatively inexpensive, and make a nice addition to an aircraft diorama, or to add a better since of scale to a finished model.

Aerobonus’ latest offering is of a Soviet woman pilot wearing flight gear and a parachute. Women played an important role in the Soviet army during World War II, making up about 3% of the total Soviet military personnel. In addition to serving in medical and auxiliary roles, a great number of women flew as pilots, and fought as snipers, machine gunners, and in the armored forces. I don’t know of any other offerings of Soviet woman pilot figures, so this is a welcome addition recognizing an important group of individuals.

Recently I was given the opportunity by IPMS USA to review Aires Messerschmitt Bf 109G Gun Barrels for the 1/48 Eduard 109G series of kits. One of the first things to notice with this product is the excellent presentation of the packaging with the sealed flap on the back of package to allow for easy access to parts.

The molding on the resin gun barrels is excellent and they come off of the resin block with little effort. You receive 2 sets in the packaging, one set is of the MG 151/20MM canon that was used on the Bf109G. The G series 109 was designed to accept a variety of field conversion sets that allowed the changes to be made in the field. These were numbered from R-1 to R-7 with the MG 151/20MM canon under each wing being labeled R-6. These barrels make a good addition to the Eduard 109G series although there is not much difference in the look of both the resin and the one provided in the kit.

Recently I was given the opportunity by IPMS USA to review Aires Messerschmitt Bf 109G Flaps for the 1/48 Eduard 109G series of kits. One of the first things to notice with this product is the excellent presentation and packaging of the product.

The contents of the package contains 1 right and 1 left flap for the Eduard Bf109G series of kits. The flaps are easy to remove from the resin base by simply scoring the flap with your hobby knife and sanding the area smooth with some fine sandpaper or a nail file.

There are some small differences between the resin flaps and the flaps that come in the Eduard Bf 109G kit. The rivet detail on the Aires flap is a lot less pronounced and finer in detail than the kit part, and the fit is tighter to the wing right out of the package while the flaps that come in the kit need a little bit of sanding to get a similar fit and feel that you would want for the final representation of your model.

Zoukei-Mura first showed this kit at the 2015 IPMS Nationals and again this year in Columbia. Well, the kit has finally arrived and its beautiful. Many might have been a little skeptical with the other kits but it’s a Phantom and one of the most iconic planes made so a new kit is always welcome. In this part, we’ll look at what’s in the box and then get some parts built and painted starting with the cockpit.

History

The M1113 is one of the most famous armored personal carriers in the history of military vehicles. It entered service in the beginning of the 1960’s and was the most widely used armored vehicle of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps in the Vietnam War. Capable of Carrying a fully equipped infantry squad, it proved its mobility, reliability and efficiency in the very difficult operational environment of Vietnam characterized by swamps and jungles. The “armored cavalry assault vehicle” or “ACAV” version was developed very soon to improve the fighting effectiveness of the M1113. The new features implemented on ACAV version were a circular turret armor for the commander’s M2 12.7mm machine gun and two additional 7.62mm M60 machine guns, protected by shields, and fitted on either side of the top cargo hatch.