The Aircraft

The Spitfire is the British fighter from World War II. Sure, there were Hurricanes, Tempests, Typhoons, Mustangs, Mosquitoes, and Meteors, but there were more Spitfires than any of them. More to the point, there have been injection molded kits in 1/144 of the Spirfire I and 5, but this is the first Mark IX. Kami de Korokoro has a resin Mark IX.

The Kit

You get two of every part, but there are two types of wing – one full-span, one with clipped wing. There are six marking options, three for clipped, three for full wings. These are shown on the back of the box and with 4-view drawings in the instructions.

One of Eduard’s Brassin line of upgrades is nose guns for their new BF-110E. This upgrade set is all resin with 12 highly detailed resin pieces and a small PE fret with 4 pieces. Also, it comes with a comprehensive instruction sheet with advertisement for other Eduard BF-110 products.

In a very neat plastic package, you will receive 4 Mg15’s, 4 ammo boxes, a lower nose, a gun tub, 4 PE covers for ammo boxes and 2 neat variations -- one a camera, and the other the top side nose, were the camera is mounted. If you use the resin upgrade guns, you will use the kit’s upper half (E-17) nose part. Alternately, if you decide to build the E-3 recon version, you need to use the kit’s lower nose half (A-6) to finish the fuselage.

The Bf-110 went though not only technical changes throughout its career, but also through a development of its operational use. It entered the war as a heavy escort and attack fighter. By the time of the Battle of Britain, it became apparent that the aircraft, in the role of escort fighter, had been pushing the envelope of its capabilities. On the contrary, as a defensive weapon against British bombers, the Bf-110 made an extremely good showing of itself and remained a deadly foe through the end of the war. The placement of RAF bombing operations within nighttime hours from 1941 brought the Bf-110 into the realm of night fighting on the Western Front. On the Eastern Front, they excelled as fast fighter bombers.

After 28 years of publishing, Ray Rimell’s Windsock Worldwide should be a familiar periodical reference to any serious WWI model aircraft builder. It’s fair to say that any such builder who is not familiar with the publication has been missing a lot and has been pursuing the subject at a great disadvantage when compared to those who look forward to the mailing of each new issue. Windsock Worldwide is, without a doubt, THE reference on the subject.

The September/October 2012 issue continues to deliver what can be best described as the bread and butter of WWI model aircraft news and information. This issue follows the now-familiar format…regular columns presented in order, with the center of the issue devoted to one or more featured subjects. This issue will be of great interest to any model builder who has purchased recent Wingnut Wings’ Fokker Eindecker or DH2 kits, because they comprise the featured subjects.

“Space, the final frontier…” The thrill that my friends and I felt that evening in September of 1966 for the premier of Star Trek on NBC (we were all of 11 or 12 years old) is still resonant in my mind. How cool was that new spaceship named Enterprise with its saucer-shaped main hull and cylindrical appendages – like nothing that we had ever seen before. To this day, I am still blown away by all that Star Trek technology and the original series is still tops in my book. So you can imagine my anticipation and delight upon hearing of this new 1:350 kit from Polar Lights of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original series. Sure, we had the refit in 1:350, and even the NX-01, but c’mon, what’s life without Captain Kirk’s original mount in that same big scale? But enough of all that memory lane stuff, let’s take a look at this kit and see how my anticipation and delight have fallen short and been fulfilled.