This is the second book in this series that I have had the pleasure of reviewing, the first being for the RMS Titanic. The reader is presented both with history of the airframe type and the basic knowledge to safely start, operate and maintain an F-86A Sabre.

This book begins with the story of the Sabre’s development and testing. Next is a good overview of the Sabre’s combat history. Then the reader gets into the main body of the book. This covers the restoration, operation and repair of the world’s only flying F-86A. The book then concludes with a listing of principal production variants and surviving airframes.

Another nice-looking resin detail set in the fine line of Quickboost products. This time we’ll be looking at the resin landing gear covers detail set for the 1/48 Hasegawa J2M3 Raiden “Jack” Interceptor/Fighter.

The Japanese WWII Raiden Interceptor/Fighter was designed to combat the high-flying B-29s over the Japanese Home Islands. It had the fastest climb rate of any Japanese aircraft of the war. The allied code-named the aircraft “Jack” and it saw combat starting in 1944.

This detail set is designed to fit exactly with any boxing of the 1/48 Hasegawa J2M3 kit. The resin parts are made in a way where they simply fit into place with no surgery required. All one needs to do is carefully remove the parts from the resin ‘plug’ they come on.

Packaged in the now classic standard clear poly 4 ¼” X 5 ½” envelope you will find a nicely printed photo-etch fret along with a piece of card stock, one small piece of acetate film, and a well illustrated instruction sheet. The printing is well rendered and very colorful. The sharp details are incredible even under a magnifying glass. However, my fret was not S.A. (self-adhesive). Not needed, but it is double-printed on the applicable parts.

The Bottom Line

A picture is worth a thousand words, as you can see. The Eduard kit is awesome and the Eduard photo-etch makes it better. The parts are drop-in replacements, plus there are parts for a seat upgrade. The Eduard guys have been busy and their work is a testament to their talented effort. I highly recommend this set to anyone who can safely use a sharp knife and wants a serious ‘SMT’ MiG.

Thank you Eduard and thank you IPMS/USA for the opportunity to review this item.

Quickboost has now added a Spitfire seat to their ever-growing line of ‘drop-fit’ resin accessories. This one comes with a harness molded in, and should be applicable to any but the very early and very late models of the Spitfire.

As with all their products (at least, all that I have seen), the molding is extremely crisp and leaves little to be cleaned up. The belt detail looks very good, and has clear distinction that should make painting this fairly easy. The seat has a nicely-molded adjustment lever on the right side that also has very nice details. There are no flare cartridge holders present at the front of the seat – something that some Spitfire seats did have. The cushion on the backrest portion of the seat does have a nice (to me) textured look. I didn’t get the micrometer out, but it looks correct proportionally to photos in my references and on the web.

Being primarily an armor modeler, I was interested in this kit after seeing a fellow modeler’s build on the web. After all, it has tracks, doesn’t it?

The kit is, in a word, miniscule…really. I was a little surprised that, for a 1/32 kit, it was so small. Don’t let size fool you though, Fujimi has provided a little gem here. The kit features only three small sprues; two molded in bright yellow styrene that make up the excavator itself, and one molded in white styrene containing 13 parts that provide some general construction site supplies – wheelbarrow, cones, etc. No decals or markings of any kind are included in the kit, an unfortunate drawback in my opinion.

The mere 60 parts are crisply molded and required little, if any, clean up. A few parts may require a quick pass from a #11 blade to remove some minor mold seam, but that’s it.