This is one of Model Art Modeling Magazine’s special editions. The text is mainly in Japanese with some English subtitles throughout. One attraction of these magazines is the high quality of the photographs and the models that are used.

This issue starts off with sixty nine pages of models. These pages are chock-full of color photographs, line drawings, and tips and tricks to building the models. The models used are the Academy 1/48th F-4B Phantom II, Hasegawa 1/72nd F-4J Phantom II and F-8E Crusader, Academy 1/72 F-8E Crusader, Zoukei-Mura 1/32nd A-1H Skyraider, Tamiya 1/48th A-1H Skyraider, Hasegawa 1/48th A-4E Skyhawk, and A-4F Skyhawk, Airfix 1/72 A-4B Skyhawk, Fujimi 1/72nd A-4C Skyhawk, Kinectic 1/48th A-6A Intruder, Revell 1/48th A-6E Intruder, Hasegawa 1/48th A-7E Corsair II. and Hobby Boss 1/72 A-7B Corsair II.

Eagle Editions’ series Wings of the Black Cross is now in its tenth edition. The latest edition is a softbound book with 36 high gloss pages. Inside the front cover is an addendum and errata sheet from the previous volumes. This is a professional approach, as new information is constantly being discovered by other researchers.

The highlight of all of these books is the photos, and this volume contains 62 black and white photos of the highest resolution. They are clearly printed and quite useable. Most of the photos have never before been seen. There are some that I’ve seen elsewhere but these reproductions are superior in clarity.

Airscale provides some excellent aircraft instrument dials, but until now you had to cut them out and add them to kit instrument panels. Well, now you can build your own instrument panels with the aid of their new bezels.

There are 46 distinct shapes, but that doesn’t mean there are only 46 pieces on the single brass fret. There are multiple bezels, allowing you to do anything you need to do when scratchbuilding an instrument panel. Don’t think that it stops there. While marketed for the instrument panel, they can be used for numerous other things. The sky is the limit.

There are US, German, RAF, and WWI instruments represented on the fret. The parts are arranged in 9 rows with each style of bezel labeled with a letter on the instructions. The instructions are printed in full color on card stock to protect the fret. The instructions indicate what each bezel is designed to represent. Some are multi-layered, so do your research.

Inside the Ersatzteiliste (parts manual) for the Bf-109E is a special tools section. Before now, if you wanted to add this to your diorama, you were limited to scratchbuilding it, and then you still had to find the tools to fit. Eduard has made this a lot easier.

Contained on a single brass fret is a roll of tools, a special tool kit, and all the tools for both. The first assembly sequence is a tool roll which can be looped over the wing. There is a second one that is all folded up. These are both perfectly formed and textured to give that canvas look. The tools fit along a canvas strap. It might be easier to add this strap from tape, but the PE part is quite adequate. As a personal aside, my thought is to use the Eduard PE part as a template to cut the “canvas” roll out of masking tape, both for scale thickness and that more realistic canvas texture that masking tape suggests.

I was given Minicraft’s B-17G for a review. Just as I was about to start the project, I was at IPMS Las Vegas “Best of the West” contest, and found a set of 1/144 decals for the B-17G. The decals included in the kit were perfectly OK, but the subject matter of this sheet made me drag out my wallet and buy it.

The first plane on the sheet is “American Beauty”, 2S*G. A friend and co-worker of my father was the top turret gunner and flight engineer on this aircraft. So it has a personal connection to me.

THE DECAL

The decal sheet itself is very good. When you finish cutting out the decals for one aircraft, you still have a solid sheet, not something that looks like a lace doily. Good planning on their part, and I appreciate that.

The subject matter of the other three planes is also very interesting – “Little Miss Mischief” of the 91st Bomb Group, “My Devotion” (an F model) of the 351st BG, and the famous “A Bit o’ Lace” from the 427th BG.