Round 2 Models has released a large 3-sheet decal set to accompany their newly revised and released U.S.S. Excelsior kit from the Star Trek series. Printed by Cartograf, these decals are commendably thin and for the most part, feature little to no carrier film to deal with. They respond quite well to MicroSol, which I used to help them conform to some of the compound curves found on the model.

These sheets actually perform two functions rather than one; first, they provide decals for virtually all of the elaborate paint scheme for this model, eliminating an incredible amount of extremely tedious masking and painting. Second, they provide surface texture in the form of tiny panels. Let me deal with these two aspects separately.

Note: This book is also available in two other formats, eBook (Pub) and eBook (PDF) both priced at $12.99

Mention the phrase Luzon 1945 and what immediately comes to mind is Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s pledge to return to the Philippines after his defeat in 1942.

Osprey Publishing in their Military History Series and Clayton K.S. Chun, along with illustrations by Giuseppe Rava, have published an excellent book on Luzon 1945, The final liberation of the Philippines. Clayton K. S. Chun, Ph.D., is on the faculty at the U.S. Army War College and served in the U.S. Air Force, has published several books in the fields of economics, national security and military history. What you get is a softcover book covering 96 pages with high resolution black and white glossy, detailed historical photos. Twenty illustrated maps and images in color are also included. The book is divided into ten sections.

PJ Production is a Belgian firm that specializes in the creation and production of resin scale models and accessories aimed at modelers of military aircraft kits and aviation-related dioramas in 1/72nd, 1/48th and 1/32nd scale. Their lines include fine and accurately detailed cast resin replacement and supplemental parts for model kits in the most commonly produced scales.

PJ Productions has produced a resin PM 3 Bomb Launcher for use with aircraft armed with such types. An out-of-box evaluation (see photos) indicates a reproduction of the French manufactured pylon that provides a realistic scale-detailed assembly with the appropriate 2 bomb attachment supports. The panel detailing is extremely fine.

This set is another of Eduard’s new “Steel” seatbelt line. The set is intended for early WWII RAF aircraft and includes three sets of shoulder harnesses and four sets of lap-belts. There is no explanation for the extra lap-belt set, as the instructions only show installation of the full set of belts.

Each harness set includes just four parts, a left lap-belt, a right lap-belt and two part shoulder straps. As I had one of the new Airfix Hurricane Mk. I kits in my to-do pile, I decided to try out the set on it. The Airfix cockpit is really well designed and looks great. I used a micro drill to open up the slot in the seatback and at the top of the armor back plate. Some photographs of Hurricane seats show the “y” portion of the shoulder harness going through the slot in the back of seat. I elected not to do this as the Eduard parts are only painted on one side, so the unpainted steel would have shown had I routed the belt through the back of the seat.

Some of the hardest details to make realistically in modern jet fighters (or any aircraft) are the molded – in seatbelts, especially those on ejection seats. Using strips of masking tape leaves a bit to be desired. Eduard has come to the rescue with sets of photo-etched seatbelts for different aircraft.

The Eduard steel photo-etched set for the F-4 in 1/48 scale is a very impressive set of pre-painted photo etched parts that are intended as replacements to kit parts. While the set is simply marked as F-4 Seatbelts, Grey, the aircraft kit that I used this example was the Monogram F-4C/D kit.

This photoetched set requires some work to use it in previous manufacturer’s F-4 kits. All the molded-in detail for the seatbelts had to be filed and ground off the seats. Specific to Monogram’s F-4, the seat bottoms are molded as part of the cockpit floor.