This is Ampersand’s second aviation book, both in the Visual History Series, and follows the same format as David Doyle’s “Flying Wings”. Ampersand got their start in 1993 when Pat Stansell distributed a free issue of Military Miniatures in Review at the IPMS Nationals in Atlanta. Ampersand joined forces with HobbyLink Japan in 2008 and have continued to expand their military AFV publications ever since. 2015 saw Ampersand dive into aviation books and 2016 marks their first dive into nautical books with the Visual History Series on the USS California. True to the series name, the focus of this book in on the visual with a mere two pages detailing the development history of the Peacemaker. A third page depicts the development of the B-36 with line drawings, and then it’s off to the well captioned photographs.

The Moebius '54 Hudson is a welcome re-tool after the fine '53 Hudson kit. My kit came well packed in an attractive retro art style box.

All parts were molded crisp and clean, and the chrome is outstanding. I did notice however, that the body had sort of a rough texture to it, requiring extra fine sanding to smooth. I did hear that early production kits suffered from this, but apparently it's now been taken care of by the manufacturer.

The instructions are in glossy color form, and offer lots of building information, but are somewhat vague on attachment points of some parts. In order to replicate factory stock correctly, the steering wheel and column will need some careful masking and painting, as they are incorrectly molded in chrome.

Aerobonus has provided another addition to the great Diorama releases with this Model T-Foam Cleaner.

The detail quality is great, there very little flash or other imperfections. The parts, once removed from the mold base, are ready to assemble. The small parts are very delicate and you must take extreme care when removing from the mold base. There is an error with the Photo Etch sheet having different part numbers on it from the instruction sheet.

The Assembly is quick and easy. The final part is painted silver with a red hose and looks great as an addition to any diorama. I highly recommend this kit.

Thanks go to Aires for providing this kit to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them

Quickboost is a company that specializes in drop-in resin replacement parts to enhance the appearance of your models. Being “drop-in” replacements, it is very rare you need you modify the original parts, hence the “quick” name.

In this case I am reviewing the Night Gun Barrels without pylons for the 1/48 F4U-5 from Hasegawa.

In this particular case the set is a “drop-in” conversion, as you don’t need to modify the original parts but there is no F4U-5 (NF) kit –that I know- without the rocket pylons.

As you can see from the pictures the resin parts have better surface detail plus removal points from the pouring stub are easier to hide than in their plastic counterparts. Also the flash hiders are very delicate, so exercise care when handling. At the same time they will look terrific in a finished model!

Highly recommened.

I would like to thank Aires/Quickboost and IPMS/USA for the review sample.

Academy continues its tradition of rendering armored fighting vehicles of the Israeli Defense Force. They have kitted several variants of the Merkava and are now doing a second variant of the Magach series (The first being Magach 6B Gal Batash, kit #13281). The Israelis are well known for renovating and modernizing older vehicles, the Magach being a prime example of this tradition. Using older M-60 Patton hulls and turrets, the Israelis upgraded the engine, armor system, and fire control system, the vehicles remained competitive into the 1990s, but have gradually been withdrawn from active service. Some quick research on the web seems to indicate that they have been withdrawn from service, but I am uncertain if they are used by reserve formations or Israeli para-military units.