This kit is a re-release from Hasegawa of the #38 Denso sponsored Toyota 88C that ran in the 1989 Le Mans race. The car finished in 53rd place and did not finish the race due to a crash. This is a curbside kit and has no engine or suspension details.

Kit

The kit comes packaged in the usual Hasegawa cardboard box and contains 1 bag of clear parts with the tire marking decal sheet inside and 1 bag of white parts with 4 rubber tires and polycaps separately bagged inside of it. There is a total of 7 sprues of white parts plus the chassis and body and 1 sprue of clear parts. All together there are 97 parts in this kit, although 14 of those parts are for other versions of the car. My kit had quite a bit of flash on the parts, but none that was difficult to remove. Just be careful to clean up the parts before assembly. There were also some ejector pin marks that will need to be taken care of or they will be seen.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Gladiator, as in my opinion it is one of the best looking biplane aircraft ever designed. The Gladiator prototype first flew in 1934 and entered service in 1937, just a year and a half ahead of the Hawker Hurricane. The Gladiator was utilized by 18 nation’s air forces during the war, and its last recorded combat operation being flown by the Finns in February of 1943 ended with a Soviet R-5 recon plane being shot down.

This resin set by Aires is not my first experience with their products. Like their other products, the resin is smooth, bubble and blemish free. What I really like is that the part includes the attachment tab for locating the stabilizer to the fuselage. As a builder, you really only need to know that the part will drop right in and a resin friendly glue will be necessary to attach the fuselage. Certainly don’t forget to wash the part clean before priming and painting.

This upgrade provides a 1//32 scale improved seat for the HK B-17. It comes in three different options, with two seats to a package. One is the plain seat, one has basic seat cushions and backpad, and one has seat cushions, backpad, and the lap-belt, as the B-17 was (from my references) rarely equipped with over-the shoulder harnesses until later versions. The lap belt is the ultimate in final detail. As you can see in the side-by side view, the kit seat (in basic gray plastic) is about 3/8” taller than the Resin2detail seats; I believe the Resin 2 detail seats are more accurate.

If you have always liked the Northrup YF-23 design or are just interested in advanced aircraft this book may be of interest to you. It was written by Paul Metz who happened to have been Northrup's Chief Test Pilot for the YF-23 ATF DEM/VAL phase. (Demonstration and Validation) With his knowledge of the aircraft and it's performance he has been able to pull together a great collection of material to give you the reader unique insight into this program. This work comes in the standard size (8.5” x 11.5” x 5/16”) and consist of 153 pages on glossy paper, also 290 color photos as I count them, 20 pieces of aircraft artwork showing various preliminary configurations, 25 charts and 38 technical drawings.

Background

Denmark was Saab’s first export customer for the Draken, designated 35XD by Saab. The Danes used a slightly different nomenclature with F-35 representing the attack version, RF-35 the reconnaissance version, and TF-35 the training version. Denmark initially ordered 20 F-35, 20 RF-35, and 6 TF-35 Drakens, with another five additional TF-35 Drakens pieced together after the Draken production line had shut down and switched to Viggen production. The Danish Draken had a 40% increase in internal fuel capacity and had its fuselage and wings beefed up to allow a maximum of 10,000 pounds of ordinance to be carried on nine beefed-up pylons. Externally, the Danish Drakens can be spotted by the larger ordinance pylons and an arrester hook. The Draken had always been designed to have an arrester hook installed, but it was never installed on any Draken but the 35XD. The Danish Drakens also carried two 30mm cannons.