A versatile twin-engine medium bomber, the B-25 was to find its first fame on April 18th, 1942, as the Bomb Group led by Jimmy Doolittle flew them off the carrier USS Hornet and made the first attack on Tokyo. Mitchells were flown by many of the United States’ Allies, were used throughout WWII, and were in service up into the 1960s.

The new Airfix B- 25C/D was sorely needed in 1/72 scale. The kit comes in a sturdy box with nice box art and is cast in gray plastic with finely molded recessed panel lines. Although each sprue was individually wrapped in clear plastic bags, one half of my sample’s fuselage was warped, and this ended up being a challenge throughout the build. The kit comes with an option of an open or closed bomb bay, and if you decide to open it, 500-pound bombs are provided.

Introduction

This impressive volume is a beautifully bound book over an inch and a half thick, with 127 beautiful map illustrations and descriptive narratives. The maps are based on Osprey’s Campaign Series of books and describe the Allied European Campaign in 1944 and 1945. The maps focus almost entirely on land campaigns rather than air or naval campaigns. Osprey has also produced a separate volume, the Atlas of Eastern Front, 1941 to 1945, that covers the war between Germany and the Soviet Union.

I was drawn to this decal set for two reasons:

One, I thought that camouflaged Mustangs are not seen as much as the bare metal US aircraft.

Two: I had to do the Aussie Southern Cross marking being an Aussie!

LPS Hobby is a decal manufacturer from Brazil. The decal sheet, instruction sheet and cover page are contained within a generously sized zip-lock bag.

This small decal set contains marking for three British camouflaged P-51K Mustangs from Royal Canadian, South African and Royal Australian Air Forces:

• KH608, Y2, “Edmonton Special”, PO John Mallandaine, 442 Sqn RCAF, Hunsdon, England. May 1945
• KH673, GL-N, “Sweetpea”, 5 Sqn SAAF, Udine Italy, January 1945
• KH676, CV-A, F/Lt 'Dusty' Lane, 3 Sqn RAAF, Cervia, Italy, April 1945

The recommended donor kit is the Tamiya 1/72 P-51D Mustang, however the newer Airfix, or any other manufacturers P-51D/K could also be used.

IPMS/USA thanks the Eduard team once again for sending us this simple, excellent set for the new Eduard FW-190 series. And thanks to Phil and John for running the team…

This seat harness is simplicity itself. There are four parts. That’s it, four. FOUR-lap belts, and over the shoulder harness. Installation? Carefully bend these durable steel belts into place. No paint flaking, no fiddling with parts that are too small for even surgical standard tweezers to hold. Just install and admire.

Far better than tape and paint, the STEEL series seat harnesses should become one of Eduard’s fastest sellers for upgrading kits that don’t have harnesses attached. Competitively priced too!

Thanks once again to Eduard and their groundbreaking technology leaps and for keeping AMS alive in those of us who have it!

We at IPMS continue to thank Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with what has turned into a monthly release schedule with extremely useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for the crowd out here in the modeling world.

This review is for the SAC landing gear released for the relatively new 1/48 ICM Mig-25. As to the basic kit, it is well designed and accurate BUT also is not for beginners. A lot of locations are vague on where parts should line up. I have struggled with the afterburner/augmentor petals, and the overall assembly of the basic fuselage. The landing gear is no different, as the angles and installation are to be expected to cause grief. It gets done but prepare yourself mentally and lay off the adult beverages while trying to line everything up.