My thanks to Roger Wallsgrove, Editor-in-Chief of Mushroom Model Publications, who provided this review sample. I have had the pleasure of meeting him and his team at Nationals.
I have always been interested in aircraft colors and markings. My library is full of books from Karl Ries, Monogram, Ducimus, Harleford and many others. I had expected this book to be a similar tome devoted to three view drawings, color call-outs and marking drawings. The authors would provide the data and then choose a photo to illustrate their information.
This book is different. It is a collection of very interesting photos, most from the Newark Air Museum. The Photos illustrate a great variety of color and markings of the four covered aircraft, during the target timeframe. Aircraft that are covered include the Hunter, the Canberra (part 1), the Valetta and the Vampire T.11. All of the photos appear to have been taken in the UK and the aircraft are primarily RAF aircraft.
This publication is edited in the UK and is dedicated to airplane models, as the title implies. It is 65 pages and printed in full color. There are 65 pages in an issue, this one in particular having 6 pages devoted to product reviews and the remaining 59 dedicated to the 7 outstanding models featured in the issue. It is printed on high quality heavy weight paper with a glossy finish. The cover is on heavier bond paper and should hold up well with repeated viewing.
This issue features the following builds:
Most model builders think of useful small hobby tools when they hear someone say TRITOOL. However, this TRITOOL item is a fundamental building material for use in scratch building, customizing or finishing models. It is a unique self-adhesive sheet of thin pre-finished foil (film) that is intended to replicate red finishes on aircraft or other models (other primary colors are available, such as white, black, yellow, orange, blue, etc.). The package contains one 90mm x 200mm sheet of material that has a red semi-gloss finish. It appears to be the correct color for reproducing a Japanese Hinomaru.
For those of us who love nothing better than trying to figure out where all of those flying wires go to and how to attach them, New Zealand’s Wingnut Wings has been a blessing and the best thing that has happened to our hobby in many years. 1/32ndscale is a fantastic scale for WWI aircraft, yet they don’t take up a lot of display room. The quality of the Wingnut Wings’ releases is still hard to digest, especially at their very reasonable price and free shipping, to boot. To complement their fantastic kits, they have now started releasing some equally stunning decals, all of which are printed in Italy by Cartograf. The registry is without fault; they are thin, and Wingnut Wings even recommends that a hair dryer be used to get their decals to conform to the model’s surface, instead of setting solutions. Amazingly, it works. Why, I don’t know, but there’s no cleanup afterwards.
Editor's note: Sheet no.s 30001 and 30002 - $12.50 each; 30005 - $7.50
For those of us who love nothing better than trying to figure out where all of those flying wires go to and how to attach them, New Zealand’s Wingnut Wings has been a blessing and the best thing that has happened to our hobby in many years. 1/32ndscale is a fantastic scale for WWI aircraft, yet they don’t take up a lot of display room.
If you have a passion for WWI aircraft this is the magazine for you. In this installment Lance Krieg walks us thru scratch building wings in the Harry Woodman approach where the wing core is cut and shaped from either balsa or basswood or even plastic stock and is then covered with a plastic skin. The process is thoroughly covered in five pages with 42 photos showing wing fabrication as well as the aft flying surfaces. Variants to the Woodman approach are also considered and shown as well, very useful addition to one’s knowledge that may be of use later.
Cleanly cast in pinkish-tan styrene the kit consists of 16 pieces, including 2 sets of arms and 2 sets of legs, a base textured in wood grain and cobblestone, and an ornamental bat. The fit is fairly good, and the parts snap together firmly, leaving the arms free to move if desired. I glued everything solidly together for this review.
In going through all of my references on the Skyraider, I found pictures of at least three types of 20mm cannon barrels. I guess it’s another one of those cases where you have to have pictures of the exact aircraft you are modeling; to be sure you get it right. The castings are very well done, very sleek and very fragile. They are one-to-one replacements for the barrels on the Hasegawa kit. Just glue the wing halves together, snip off the kit barrels and drill a hole in the leading edge, and you’re ready to go. If you are depicting a step-down barrel, this is the way to go, because you just won’t find any thin walled tubing that will give you that nice of a step-down. The pitot tube is very thin and very fragile. And, of course, the quality of the casting of Quickboost detail parts is great.
My thanks to Aires for the review sample and to IPMS/USA for letting me do the review.
Editor's note: P/N 4498 = $35.50; P/N 4503 = $37.50
The Italeri (also boxed by Tamiya) Ar-196A-3/A-4 and Ar-196A-5 are beautiful kits. They have huge canopies though and the kit cockpit while nice really just screams out for more detail. Enter Aires. What they provide is nothing short of phenomenal. Comprising resin, photoetch and film pieces this set is comprehensive to say the least. While marketed as a cockpit set this set also includes parts for other parts of the model, such as the engine, gun cowling and pontoons. It really is a kit upgrade set not just a cockpit set.
