Having awaited the Tamiya Tomcat since they were at the museum - measuring the real things (and having to keep quiet about it until they announced it) I was very satisified with the excellent kit they produced. FANTASTIC!! I was even luckier when I found that the Eduard instrument set was available for review.

This set is designed for the Tamiya Tomcat and it fits the kit parts wonderfully. The instructions call for minimal scraping of the raised details Tamiya provides. The only part I had to actually remove was the RIO radar sunshield, but I used a brand new #11 blade and was able to use it instead of the etch piece Eduard provided.

The only part that didn't look quite right, when compared to photos, was #8. The triple fold worked fine, but the part seemed to be larger than the kit part (H34) it went on, and the edges overhang some.

This is a thin book with only 44 pages, but they are very high quality, and full of profile pictures of many striking color schemes used on various air force Phantoms.

The detailed color profiles are a joy to look at and present very unusual F-4E Phantom II camouflage and markings for 15 different aircraft.

I found this book fascinating and will be building at least five of the featured aircraft. This will be a fantastic reference for me to use.

I recommend this book to everyone who likes and or builds Phantom’s

Thanks go to MMP Books for providing this book to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it.

For those of you who love aircraft and their details, Reid Air Publications is the gold standard for reference. This series of books is a glorious full color run through some of the greatest planes in the US armory. The latest book reviewed here covers the A-7 II Corsair, commonly called the SLUF (short little ugly fella or some derivative!). This is an in-depth photo journal of the plane from top to bottom and front to back. It covers variants including A-7 D-H, TA-7C, TA-7H, A-7K as well as all the needed under wing ordnance. Looking at the general chapter headings will give you a good start to the depth this book has:

Here’s another of those handy little add-ons to save a model from the “shelf of not quite right models”. In this case, it’s a replacement for that pitot tube which got broken off (or was never there) on a current project or a long-finished model.

In this case, I asked for the Master Model pitot for my Revell Lightning F.6, which I finished a few years ago. When I looked on the shelf, I found it didn’t have a pitot tube.

Master’s instruction says to take the pitot assembly and remove the plastic pitot tube from the mount. Well, the mount was gone too, since it’s all one part on the Revell kit. So I scratch built a new mount. This is not a huge project. It’s very, very tiny, in fact. I started out by stretching a piece of sprue. As the stretch cooled, I bent one end to get a sort of L shape, only not a sharp angle. Almost a j.

This review covers the re-release of the Kenworth K-100 by Revel in 1:25 scale. There are 284 parts molded in White, Chrome, and Clear, with Vinyl tires, and waterslide decals. Fit and finish on this kit is very good for its age. Incidentally, this is the truck style used for Optimus Prime in the original cartoon version of Transformers. The good news: this is a well designed kit. The bad news: I don’t see a current release date so they may be hard to find.

Construction and Detailing

This 2017 re-release #85-2513 has seen several box arts and versions (including the aerodyne’s) over the years. It needs glue and paint, so it would be recommended for advanced modelers due to the high piece count. On the other hand, it doesn’t have the usual poor cab fit issue. In fact, it assembles very well. The build is done in modules and is fairly simple with the full frame being assembled, then the motor and interior.