The Eduard Mirage IIIC is a well-known kit, first released in the mid-2000s. Despite being 15-yr old molds, they hold well the pass of time and it is nice to see it re-released. It sure builds into a nice replica of the French interceptor.

The kit comes molded in light grey plastic, with a total of 167 parts in 8 sprues, plus a small sprue of clear parts. The decals are printed by Eduard, they are opaque, shiny and in register. This boxing also includes pre-painted photoetch and pre-cut masks. As an add-on, this kit also includes resin parts for the upgraded airframes which used the ATAR 9C engine.

This book is the second in a series on American prototypes and secret projects, the first on cargo aircraft. It covers many different aircraft from WWII types to right up till the early cold war. The authors were granted an unprecedented level of access to the various manufacturers’ archives and the amount of information in the book really shows this! This book covers over 200 designs from the well-known to those beyond obscure.

The book is broken down into nine chapters. The first is a brief overview of the last 80 years of airlift design and usage.

The second chapter covers the design challenges facing aerospace engineers especially when the government demands were outpacing the technology. Everything from wing placement to cargo door size and placement are discussed. Many other factors such as carrying capacity and range are also covered, as are the advantages of prop, turboprop, and jet configurations both real and perceived.

The anti-slip surface on tanks and airplanes are a unique feature and often not represented, especially on airplanes and helicopters. In the past the ways to replicate this were barely passable. Well that has now changed.

Ammo by Mig Jimenez has released not one but, three different versions, of this anti-slip paste. Of course, there are different scale models and so there are different ‘scales’ of this new paste.

The first anti-slip paste is in sand color for 1/35^th scale. These would be used on vehicles like the M1 Abrams and Bradley fighting vehicles.

The second paste is designed for 1/72 and 1/48^th scale models, in particular airplanes can benefit from this paste. The ‘grit’ is a finer one that is typical for airplanes.

The third one is a brown color designed for 1/35^th scale vehicles.

John Geigle of Masterpiece Models gave us a number of review items in Chattanooga this year and because I love to build the quirky and unusual stuff, I volunteered to do the dirty work (I’m going to try my best to avoid puns during the rest of this review, as difficult as that is for me.) and put this one together.

IPMS/USA again thanks Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with one more of many monthly releases, with useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for those who build. And thanks to IPMS leadership for sending it to me to be reviewed.

This set has eight parts: two nose gear halves, two shock struts for the main gear, a main rotorhead three-point blade swashplate, a cyclic main rotor mount plate with four points, a main rotor brace, and a tail rotor pitch link assembly. Rotor heads are the main focal point and the failure point of most rotary wing aircraft… and metal is the perfect solution for the fragile bits.