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Another entry into aftermarket 1/700 scale US Navy 20mm mounts. Has single and double tripod mounts. Photoetch steel with close to scale look, not difficult to fold, fair value, but still has flat barrels. One of few sources for 20mmx2 mounts. Will give acceptable, good-looking 20mm mounts for late WW2 USN warships.

One major bugaboo for 1/700 scale warships has been oversized light AA weapons. Most injection-molded kits have 20mm barrels that are more like 3-5 inch guns when scaled up to actual size. Gun shields are thicker than battle ship armor plate when scaled up. In other words, most WW2 models suffer from light AA weapons that are way too big, wide, chunky and oversized, enough so to make the model look toy-like instead of accurate. This is especially true for US Navy WW2 warships, which carried numerous Oerlikon 20mm mounts.

This is the first release in Kagero’s new Red Series. From what I understand, the Red Series will consist of decals accompanied by 8 pages of color instructions. Although I have the 1/48 scale sheet for review, it is available in 1/72 and 1/32 as well.

The decals and accompanying booklet come in a re-sealable plastic sleeve, which is useful for storage purposes. The booklet itself is indeed 8 pages (including front and back cover), and is printed on high quality, thin (think good quality magazine) paper stock. Good quality color printing has been used throughout. The cover page has a dramatic in-action painting of Mustang #1 on the decal sheet. The interior 6 pages cover the individual subjects of the decals (see below). The final (back) page has 3 small profiles of the subjects, as well as a brief how-to on the best way to apply Kagero decals.

3 aircraft are covered in this decal sheet:

The rotary engine (the engine itself rotates while the crankshaft remains stationary) was first developed by Felix Millett as a five-cylinder engine that was mounted in a bicycle wheel, and was displayed at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris (his design having been patented in 1888). In 1889, Lawrence Hargrave designed a rotary engine intended for use in an aircraft, and in the United States, Stephen Balzer worked on rotary engines in the 1890s. Back in Europe, De Dion-Bouton developed a rotary engine in 1899, but this was never fitted to an aircraft, and in the United States, Adams-Farwell developed a rotary engine for use in automobiles in 1901. Gnome, a French company run by brothers Louis, Laurent and Augustin Seguin, developed the world's first production rotary engine, the 7-cylinder, 50 hp “Omega”, which was shown at the 1908 Paris automobile show.

Once again a hearty “Thank you” goes to David Lajer at Aires for this review item.

This is a simple cockpit upgrade, intended to be used on the Kinetic kit. Unfortunately, I thought this was for the Tamiya kit, but I am certain it can be used in either one; I have no Kinetic single-seat Block 50 kit, and no access to one, so I decided to build it in the “press on” mode, with intent to use it in my next Tamiya F-16.

The cockpit tub is what we have come to expect from Aires - superlative! Detail abounds, and careful painting yields an excellent canvas for the rest of the model. Switches, hoses, and actuators are all included, and the control stick is molded on the sidewall, preventing the usual fiddling around we experience when installing such items. With careful painting and drybrushing, you will have an impressive, much-more-detailed-than-in-the-injection-molded-kit cockpit. The PE fret includes delicate rudder pedals; be careful here as they are VERY fragile.

This is the second volume of this magazine I have read since they changed to a quarterly format and I do like the amount of detail crammed into it. This issue is made up of 13 articles focusing on kit builds, scratchbuilds, and other fun stuff, so let’s get to it.

The first two builds are Bat-related kits by Polar Lights. These are the 1/25th scale Batboat from the old TV series and the 1/32nd scale Batmobile from the same show. These are basic, no frills builds resulting in two smart-looking vehicles.

Next up is a new kit from Pegasus of Uncle Martin and his Spaceship. For those of you too young to remember, this is based on the My Favorite Martian TV show. This starts with some history regarding the kit development and behind the scenes info from the show. This is followed by a full build of the kit. The 1/18th scale kit builds up nicely and includes a figure of Uncle Martin which has a very good resemblance to actor Ray Walston.