The Product

This set comes on a single photo-etch fret and offers several worthwhile enhancements. The list of items include: brake lines, a complete set of landing gear doors, radiator faces, radiator exit door, engine shutters, cowling flaps, canopy lever, canopy mirror, ring & bead gun sight, throttle, several cockpit levers and trim wheels. A great feature about this brass fret is the delicate attach points. The instructions are clearly printed with Eduard’s easy to understand pictorials.

Review

I want to start this review with a disclaimer: I am not an “armor guy”. I built mainly airplanes and the occasional soft skin. But armor has been calling me recently and the release of an all new-tooling Tamiya Jagdpanzer was too tempting as to not trying it.

This kit has a total of 252 pieces. It comes with plastic tracks, includes the torso of two figures and it has a small decal sheet with markings for 3 different tank hunters (one Eastern Front, two Western Front examples).

The Mil Mi-2 is a light helicopter, produced in Poland, used for transport and close air support. Powered by two GTD-350 turbine engines, the aircraft would be armed for a variety of uses. Several specialized variants carried a 23 mm autocannon, machine guns, 57mm rocket pods, four 9K11 Malyutka anti-tank missiles or Strela-2 AA missiles. The Mi-2URP Gunship and anti-tank variant was one of these, and the Hobby Boss kit of this version is used for comparison. The Hobby Boss Mi-2 is the most common and most recent kit and is available in several different variants, although there are a few others like the Smer kit which was released in 2000.

The Aires Wheels and Mask Set includes cast resin replacement wheels, two for the main landing gear and two for the nose gear, as well as a set of pre-cut vinyl paint masks and illustrated instructions.

Ultracast from Canada has released several detail sets for the Eduard Spitfire MkIX in 1/48 scale.

This particular set is a drop-in replacement for the Spitfire tubular exhaust. It has been casted in a pale cream-colored resin with a delicate pour stub that will make removal an easy task.

As you can see, the surface is very smooth and the detail is delicate with thin, hollow exhausts. While the plastic parts are also hollow, this resin set allows for insertion after painting.

To use the resin exhausts, you only need to add the provided exhaust supports to the model’s nose in the step where you would add the original kit exhaust pieces. The rest of the assembly can continue as usual, and once painting and finishing is complete, you simply add the resin exhaust by gluing it to the exhaust support added during construction.

It is a simple detail that makes painting and masking a much easier task, and it is highly recommended.

Ultracast from Canada has released several detail sets for the Eduard Spitfire MkIX in 1/48 scale.

This particular set is a drop-in replacement for the Spitfire Cockpit door. It has been casted in a pale cream-colored resin with a delicate pour stub that will make removal an easy task.

As you can see, the finish is very smooth and the surface detail is delicate and petite. It includes the crowbar, a small handle, and the forming ribs of the door. A note of caution, I believe the crowbar was painted silver during WWII, and it was only after the war that they got painted red. Check your references.

I recommend this replacement part for modelers of all levels, except novices.

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