Background

The Matra R-530 is a medium range air-to-air missile. This two stage rocket propelled missile entered production in 1962. Frequently, interceptor aircraft utilize this missile for longer range along with the Matra R-550 Magic 2 short range air-to-air missile. The missile is available with Infrared Homing or with Semi-Active Radar Homing. In some cases, a missile of both types is carried. This weapon is used by at least sixteen countries, most utilizing French sourced aircraft.

Merit quietly issued a 1/35 X-craft submarine and once I got my hands on it, I was impressed with both the molding and size of the kit. Still, there was some room for add-ons and improvements and Eduard has issued a photoetch sheet to help address some of the issues.

Eduard’s sheet is composed of a single sheet with 30 superb parts. The sheet addresses the hatches on the top of the ship by replacing 6 individual parts and adding detail and texture. A little removal of the hinges and these go on smoothly. There are slight folds on four of the parts but this is easy to accomplish with a new #11 blade.

Next, the kit propeller is undersized and Eduard uses the kit hub but has you wrap three individual blades around a dowel and add them to the hub. This takes a little patience but the result is a larger and more accurate prop.

Applications

Airscale, as usual is a leader in making cockpit enhancing products and this is a new product to their line. Finally the modern cockpit has been addressed with these decals allowing a modeler to get just the right look of electronic flight displays and round instruments. Included on the electronic displays are the bezel buttons surrounding the bezel. The modelers would have to remove any raised buttons if retaining this portion or simply cut the display portion out and paint the buttons.

There is a little surprise and a real bonus in this set, a legend giving the name of each instrument type. Usually if you look close enough you can guess here but this is taken care of with this nice feature.

Master Models once again provides IPMS USA with examples of machine-shop excellence… We are extremely thankful to Piotr for providing examples of his work to review.

As you can see by the product photographs, these .50 caliber browning machine gun barrels are exquisite works of art. Designed to fit one of the two 1/32 Lighting models currently available, this nine-part set provides four different length .50 caliber barrels, and one 20MM cannon barrel; all have flash hiders integrally-machined in place, and represent the armament as used on P-38M night-fighter variants of the Lightning. Unlike set 086, this one does not have separate cooling jackets or barrels, so it is a simple finish and install set to replace the kit items. I do not have a night fighter conversion for the 1/32 kit, so this set was not installed. However, attached is a great picture of the actual item and how it would look on the real item…

Eduard continues their additions to the 1/32 scale line of armament with a pair of resin Lau-10 Zuni Rocket pods. These pods carried our 5” rockets with folding fins. There are multiple warhead configurations for these rockets. This set comes with one option which look s like standard high explosive. The set comes with fourteen perfectly cast resin pieces, a small photoetch fret and a set of decals for both pods.

Prep work is pretty straightforward as casting blocks need removed from the main body, the front and back body ends and the rocket heads. Cast into the back body end are representations of the end of the rocket and its find. There are attached with super glue and fit is good. One thing to note before committing to paint is that the resin does need a good scrubbing with soap, etc. to get rid of mold release. I added the ends, washed and primed the parts with Alclad gray primer.