Illiad Design has recently released an aftermarket decal set covering Schlacht Bf-109Es. The Schlacht units were ground-attack units. I believe their mission was what is now known as “close air support”.

This decal sheet covers a total of 6 aircrafts and you are provided with enough markings as to be able to model all of them and covering all main fronts during 1941/42: Russia, North Africa and the English Channel. Well done Illiad Design!

The airframes cover a transitional period on the standard camouflages during 1941/42. This means some of them are 71/02 over 65 while others are 74/75 over 76. Yellow noses and fuselage bands and rudders add a spot of color to the camouflages. To top it one of the camouflages is in a North Africa scheme of 79 over 76, with a replacement wing in 71/02 over 65. Amazing choices!

IPMS/USA thanks Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with one more of many monthly releases, with extremely useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for the modeling crowd out here in the modeling world. And thanks to IPMS leadership for sending it for review.

This review is for the SAC landing gear released for the 1/48 2016 Eduard release series ME-109F and G models. As such, it covers the majority of ‘109s’ available in the current Eduard catalog.

I bought several of these SAC sets when they came out, because I found the kit gear did not like handling on the shelf. The tail wheel assembly was the major culprit, and this set fixes the issue by being robust and able to “give” without snapping. It has the added benefit of being able to be carefully bent back into position if tagged by the cat, dog, angry wife, or husband, etc.

MiniArt is a Ukrainian company specializing in 1/35 figures and some vehicle kits. The figures tend to be packaged in groups with unique poses or unusual subjects. Over the years, they have become one of the leaders in injection molded figures, and more recently, they have started issuing sets of modern military figures.

This kit is one of their newer releases and features figures to be posed with modern German AFVs. The kit includes five figures in various poses, and includes a female crew member representing many modern armies that have women serving in combat roles. The four male figures are posed in a standing position that is meant to be posed in the turret hatch of the vehicle. The female figure is posed sitting.

This is a review of the Revell ’80 Jeep Honcho “Ice Patrol” kit.

Engine

There was little flash on the engine parts but there is also very little detail. You get just a very basic engine with a way oversize fanbelt.

Interior

Only faint engraving can be seen on the door panels making it very difficult to detail paint. The kit does have 2 different decals for the gauge cluster.

Body

The body went together pretty well. The rear portion of the box is a separate piece that I didn’t care for, but it fit very well. You get a choice with decals in either blue tone or orange. My choice was the blue to go along with the Tru-Color metallic bright Atlantic Blue paint. The inside of the box was painted with Rustoleum texture paint for a spray in bedliner look.

The kit comes with a toolbox, 2 gas cans and a snowmobile. Once assembled, the sled won’t fit in the box of the truck with the tailgate up.

I have read Scale Aircraft Modelling (SAM) on and off for many years which is possible because this is the 39th year it has been in production. It is an English publication and, as the name implies, covers aircraft modeling. Normally I purchase my copy at a local bookstore but this issue came directly from the publisher so let’s take a look and see what is in store.

There are 88 pages counting the inside and outside of the front and rear covers. Not sure what those are counted but have noticed this in other magazines. There is also 8 pages numbered separately in the middle of the magazine with no explanation.

One of the first things I noticed is the cover, duh, which has a nice painting of a Bachem Natter in flight. There are also a few pictures of some of the articles inside.