For many people the Douglas SBD symbolizes American carrier aviation in World War II as it played an instrumental role in most of the early major battles in the Pacific, especially the victory at Midway where the SBD’s of the Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet sank four of Japan’s best carriers on June 4, 1942.
This set (SAC #72120) replaces the main gear legs and retraction struts along with the tail wheel. You have to use the kit main wheels and fenders. You get five metal reproductions of the kit parts in the usual soft white metal. That’s where my difficulty with this set started. Airfix has done an excellent job of reproducing very delicate landing gear parts in plastic. The main gear legs trap the main wheels and the flexible properties of the plastic parts help. It also really helps when you install the gear parts into the finished gear wells. There’s a lot of fiddling once the parts are the bay and again the plastic assisted by snapping back to its original shape. The metal parts on the other hand, bent and were very difficult to realign once the glue set. For that reason, I preferred the plastic parts. This is the first SAC set I’ve used that created more work than it was worth to have metal parts.
Another of the many sets from SAC that I’ve used. Like those this one (SAC #72110) reproduces the kit parts in soft white metal with one exception, the tail wheel part leaves a gap over the tire that looks more refined then the kit part. Test fit the main wheels on their mounts because that is the point the part was cast from. When you cut it from the sprue, it needs some file work to get a good fit. The metal parts in this case have the advantage of allowing slight adjustments once they’re in place. That’s helpful because this aircraft has some strange angles in the gear mounts. In the photos I’ve installed one Airfix and one SAC main gear leg for comparison. This set is a nice addition to a nice little kit.
Thank you IPMS and SAC for the sample.
Hauler is a Czech Republic company specializing in producing high quality resin and PE after market accessories including resin kits. In their line of products are the Euro Pallets. Actual Euro Pallets are standardized by the European Pallet Association which must meet the specifications such as size and number of special nails in a designated pattern. The sizes of the Euro Pallet in 1:1 scale are 47.2" (1,200mm) x 31.5"(800mm) x 5.7"(144mm).
5 resin sprues are contained in the package enough to make 2 complete pallets. Upon close inspection one can see the wood grain detail cast into the resin. The only flash seen is located between the wood planks which are easily cleaned up in a matter of minutes by using a Xacto knife and sandpaper. There are no instructions included in the package but, a quick check at Hauler's website shows downloadable pictures of the completed pallets. Each pallet consists of 4 parts.
Aerobonus has been putting out inexpensive and impressive figures for aircraft modelers for quite some time now. They have been beautifully sculpted and easy to assemble. This new figure is no different.
Molded in light grey resin this Russian pilot comes in four pieces: The body, the helmeted head, and two arms. The body will require some very minor cleanup between the legs but that is about it. All the other parts are easily removed from the pour stub. Assembly is easy enough. Then it is just a matter of painting the figure. I like his pose as he is ‘flying’ his hands.
If you are looking to learn figure painting without breaking the bank, these Aerobonus figures are just the ticket. They are perfect additions to any model airplane or even as stand-alone figures. This one is just as good.
Highly recommended
This is the British decided that they needed a less expensive tank so the Medium Tank Mk. A Whippet was developed. This had a crew of three and was armed with four Hotchkiss machine guns. It first saw battle in March 1918.
The kit contains
The kit is not too complex and assembles in 16 stages which are not to complex.
This kit is a model of a proposed vehicle to build a Panther Reconnaissance tank mounting a turret under consideration for the 8 wheeled PanzerSpahwagen using the 5cm KwK 39 gun. A project was started in January 1942 by Krupp & Rheinmetall with a projected delivery of Oct/Nov 1942. The project was not pursued and the painting schemes are pure conjecture.
This kit has approximately 288 styrene parts, DS tracks, no photo etched parts, and much worse set of instructions, they need to be reviewed very carefully before gluing any parts together.
Thank you PJ Production for providing this elegant aircraft accessory pilot figure, and thank you to the IPM Reviewer Corps for letting me review it! I am very appreciative of all you do for the scale modeling community.
The pilot arrived in a small blue cardboard box, with a small plastic bag inside holding both the pilot figure and a casting plug with arms. The light tan resin showed no sign of mold release and the minimal flash was easily removed without compromising the fine surface details. The separate arms allow custom positioning to suit the application, and the arm-torso join surfaces are flat, easily allowing drilling or flexible wire or pin to reinforce the joint. The resin is not too brittle or too soft. Many detail surfaces, such as harnesses and straps are slightly undercut, allowing highlighting washes a good place to pool and do their job.
Skunkmodel from China has released a very nice and useful kit: Royal Navy Tow Tractor. I’ve believe this particular tractor has seen service with the Royal Navy since the mid-1960’s until the early 2010s so you have a multitude of aircraft that can easily fit into a diorama.
The box comes with 3 sprues, two of them are identical – one for each Tow Tractor - and a 3rd sprue with a total of 9 figures, although only one of them is a driver. Six of the figures are wearing short sleeve shirts which means only tropical locations for your diorama (i.e no South Atlantic or Artic operations). You still have 3 figures with long sleeves.
The Handley Page Victor was conceived as a nuclear bomber in the late 1950s. It was the third and last of the “V Bombers”, following the Valiant and Vulcan. As the Royal Navy took over the nuclear deterrent mission with submarines, the V Bombers became aircraft without missions. The Valiant had already been reconfigured as an airborne tanker, but when the airframes became worn out, the Victor bombers became the tanker force.
In 1982 the Victor K.2 tankers participated in one of the most complicated missions ever conceived. Operation Black Buck used 11 Victor K.2s and a single Vulcan B.2 to deliver a bomb load from Ascension Island to Port Stanley Airport in the Falklands, a distance of 3900 miles.
The next, and last big deployment of the Victor K.2 was the 1991 (First) Gulf War, The RAF called their participation Operation Granby. This was the operation to force Iraq out of Kuwait
