I am very appreciative of Hasegawa USA and Hobbico for provided a review example of a limited edition, reissued kit of one of the last flying boats used by the U. S. Navy and Coast Guard. I also wish to extend a very deep appreciation to the IPMS/USA Reviewer Corps for choosing me to review the P5M-2G variant of the Martin Marlin.

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.

This review is for the SAC landing gear released for the relatively new 1/48 MENG F-35A. (If they do an F-35B and C, we are truly going to be blessed, Meng’s new kit has great details, fit, and has a host of appropriate ordinance with proper dimensions and appearance…).

Personal note: While the official name of the F-35 is “Lightning II”, I personally refer to it as “The Horny Toad” because that’s what it looks like to me from the side while taxiing by. I have been fortunate to see most the test articles at Edwards and PAX River in operation, and it’s a noisy little beast, particularly when the fanny is lit.

Quickboost has added the seats for the JU 87 Stuka to their line of resin aircraft accessories. This latest addition is molded in a grayish resin, smooth, seamless and bubble free. The seats are molded in one piece and are easy to remove from the mold block. The set contains both the front and rear seat.

The package states that it is for the Zvesda or Academy kits but it would probably work well with any of the JU 87 kits. I compared it with the Academy kit. Talk about a noticeable difference, the detail on the Quickboost parts is outstanding. From the photos, you can see that the Quickboost seat has the belts molded on and you can almost feel the metal underneath. You will definitely want to have the canopy open for this.

Thank you to Aires-Quickboost and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for the privilege of reviewing this excellent aftermarket resin engine. The replacement engine adds an eye-catching crisp detail in a highly visible part of the Hobby Boss FM-2 kit, which represents the latest tall-tail version of the Wildcat.

The package contains the engine on a single casting plug, molded in medium brownish-gray polyurethane resin. The application is very simple; trim the engine off the plug, clean up, and replace the kit parts. This is nearly a direct drop-in replacement; all you need to do is carefully remove the engine from the plug, trim out the casting webs from the cylinder backs, and modify the new engine to fit the kit engine mount. Be sure to mount the new engine in the correct orientation, since the replacement engine does not have a locating slot. This is not a problem; just ensure that up is up!

Upfront, I want to thank Scale Aircraft Conversions for providing outstanding aftermarket bits for our beloved model kits, and to IPMS USA a big thank you for allowing me to review the Scale Aircraft Conversions metal gear. I’ve had a chance to build two Wingnut Wings kits now and let me assure their kits are TOP NOTCH and fit and finish is unrivaled. In my humble opinion though, the weakest point of these large 1/32 scale kits are the beautiful scale landing gear, and the most obvious place to add some aftermarket metal bits.