History Brief

The A6M2-N floatplane was developed from the Mitsubishi A6M Zero Type 0, for the purposes of supporting amphibious operations and defending remote bases. It was based on the A6M-2 Model 11 fuselage, with a modified tail and added floats. This aircraft was the brainchild of Shinobu Mitsutake, Nakajima Aircraft Company's Chief Engineer, and Atsushi Tajima, one of the company's designers. A total of 327 were built, including the original prototype.

The Product

My sample came in a standard size box featuring attractive box art. The contents were well packaged and included; 9 grey plastic sprue, 1 in clear, 1 instruction sheet and 1 decal sheet. This kit has been around for a few years now and has been re-released with differing decal options.

Model Art Magazine is a monthly magazine that covers aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art started releasing magazines in 1966 and has evolved from there over the past forty eight years.

The September issue starts off with several small articles which include the IJA/N Airplane Illustrated and a build article on the Trumpeter 1/35 Soviet JS-7 Heavy Tank which includes a walk around on a actual vehicle in a museum and the history of Russian and American heavy tanks.

The main article this month features tools. What modeler doesn't like tools? The article consists of thirty three pages of pictures of tools and a brief description of what it does and price. The tools in the article range from colored pencils, files, trimmers, drills, solvents, lights, sandpaper, saws, tweezers and punches.

Quick summary, this is not Dragon’s first Panzer III kit released but it might be one of their finest. Upon opening the box, you will find the following items, all 650 parts (about 70 of which are not used):

• 24 sprues of gray plastic
• 2 bags of Magic Tracks
• 1 decals sheet with 5 sets of markings for gray panzer schemes
• 1 clear sprue of periscopes

There are a few variations to decide upon for he build. After looking over the instructions a few times, I decided to start building a vehicle from 2nd Panzer Division, Russia 1941. The kit has different cupolas to choose from and the 2nd Panzer Division had late model cupolas which I prefer over the early cupolas used by the 16th Panzer Division.

Fans of 60's and 70's custom show cars will recall that prolific period when it seemed that every week a new car – prototype and/or model – rolled out on display. Many of these vehicles were designed to augment a popular TV show (The Munsters Coach and Dragula, the Monkeemobile, Batmobile, etc); others hit the show circuit, and still others landed on the shelves of our friendly hobby shop where hordes of kids (like me) spent our allowances. Tom Daniel's Cherry Bomb falls into that category. I'd never built it the first time around so I jumped on the opportunity to do so this time.

The kit actually contains three vehicles – the gas turbine-powered car, a surfboard-derived trailer, and a chopper style motorcycle whose gas tank replicates the explosive device in question, which launched many a boys' room toilet seat when lit and flushed. (Or so I hear).

Furball Aero-Design has been producing some awesome decals since being founded in 2012. With this latest release they addresses a somewhat new and popular kit, the HobbyBoss 1/48 scale A-6 Intruder. A little about the aircraft, the Grumman A-6 Intruder was an American mid-wing, all-weather attack aircraft powered by twin jet engines and built by Grumman Aerospace. In service with the US Navy and US Marine Corps between 1963 and 1997, the Intruder was designed to replace the piston-engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Furball has given you the option to build two complete USMC examples from a selection of 13 marking schemes.