Editor's note: Dragon Models USA is the Fine Molds Models Importer in the USofA but this review author provided his own kit, out of pocket, for this review. The kit is currently very difficult to find on the retail market.

Pros:

• Superbly engineered kit, very little filling or correcting will be needed.
• Best kit of this subject ever released.

Cons:

• Expensive, now increasingly hard to acquire. (I apologise for teasing you with the review)
• Instructions in Japanese (note: may not actually be a con if you *are* Japanese)

Overall

A pricy kit but you get what you pay for in this case. Given the cost and the fact that viable alternatives are around, this not for a casual SW fan or model builder. Instead, this kit is for somebody who wants to do a really nice job on a Y-Wing fighter with a maximum of detail and a minimum of grief.

Description

Another excellent issue from the folks at Happy Medium Press with high quality production materials and a variety of articles to suit to suit many themes and interests of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy modeler. Between the heavyweight glossy covers are 98 color glossy pages containing 13 articles. There are fewer than 6 advertisements so the content is very high.

The articles are well researched and relevant to the topics they cover.

What I like about the articles is the balance of Sci-fi and fantasy along with a lot of subject matter variety within each genre. Also, there are OOB builds, kit-bashing, scratch building (both partial and complete), painting, in-depth background articles and enlightening interviews.

If you have not dealt with “Zactoman”, and you are in to 1/32 Soviet aircraft, visit his website. Your wallet will automatically open… In this case, Chris graciously provided review items.

When I built the Trumpeter SU-25 back about three months ago, I noted the outboard pylons were not included in the kit. Serious sadness, as I had never seen an SU-25 without these pylons. The holes for the pylon mounts were in the wing, but the pylons were not on the runners anywhere…. Who could figure out why? Cost cutting over 1/100 of a dime…

In steps Chris at Zactomodels. He’s about as crazy about cold war Soviet aircraft as I am… and he has provided a 1 or so-hour solution to the missing pylon. The PD-62-8 Pylon and APU-60-1 launch rail he provides, along with the detail parts to make it more realistic, are for lack of words, perfect resin castings. Suddenly my SU was about to be complete…

Wash the parts with 409 or similar degreaser, let dry, and get busy.

I like the Mirage family of jets, they just look fast. An interesting feature is the bulbous nose probe out in front of the radome. In plastic this is a hard part to clean up – I have suffered these trials with the Heller Mirage 2000 and the Italeri Mirage F.1. The Mirage 2000 was the Eduard re-release that I built for IPMS review. Well, the nose probe was a casualty of the road on my way to its first contest entry! I made the repair, but it looked a bit short and then it was subsequently lost. The Model Master probe is far more petite and prototypical, so I was eager to try this brass replacement and restore my Mirage to its visual glory!

In this set Quickboost offers a drop-in replacement set of exhaust pipes for the Trumpeter C-47. This set eliminates pesky mold seams and provides a deeper more realistic exhaust opening. The exhaust pipes in the kit and the QB replacements appear to have built-in mufflers. My guess is that Trumpeter depicted a later style exhaust. The Monogram kit, on the other hand, has a short pipe with a more turned out opening. This earlier style is more appropriate for the WWII aircraft. Working on the hunch that the QB pipes are a later style, I went through my reference and I have found pictures of Vietnam era Gooney Birds with such a pipe, including the AC-47 gunships. This also includes the C-47s the Army used for VIP transport in CONUS. So if you are modeling the later aircraft, including the Monogram AC-47 release, these mufflers would be more appropriate for your model. Highly recommended.