Brengun has produced a photoetch improvement set for Eduard’s 1/144 scale MiG-15. There are parts to redo the cockpit interior, new landing gear doors, wing fences, a pitot, and antennas.

The project begins with the cockpit. The Eduard cockpit front is cut away, and the rest is thrown away. The PE kit contains the cockpit floor and sides, consoles, a seat and instrument panel. Also, you get seat belts. Wow. And there are two extra panels which are inserted on the cockpit sides after the fuselage is assembled.

I made a mistake here. I thought I should carve the plastic wing fences off and install the PE parts at this point in the assembly, before doing the landing gear. It turns out that the wing fences are much more susceptible to being knocked off than the gear doors or the landing gear. I had to put the surviving wing fences in the envelope and hold them after I knocked all of them off. The instructions are wise here, follow them.

Scale Aircraft Conversions provides a nice set of metal landing gear for a number of aircraft. I jumped at the chance to get the SAC gear for the C-119 because it looks spindly, and I need all the help I can get to keep my models intact.

The SAC parts are very good copies of the kit gear. The other wonderful thing about the metal gear is that if you have a little trouble getting alignment as you install the parts, you can tweak the metal parts into alignment without breaking them.

Installation was just like the kit instructions say, and the wheels fit onto the SAC gear legs perfectly.

Overall Assessment.

Highly recommended. The parts fit nicely, they are stronger than the kit parts, and you don’t have to paint the SAC metal parts to make them look like metal parts.

Many thanks to Scale Aircraft Conversions for the review item and to IPMS USA for the chance to add strength to my Dollar Nineteen.

Kenny Loup and Gator Masks and More have been around for a while supplying masking sets for ships and planes as well as Gator Grip Glues. For this review, we are looking at a masking set for U-453 in 1/72 scale for Revell’s excellent U-boat kit. U-453 was on active duty from 1941 to 1944 when it was sunk. The boat served in the Mediterranean Sea and carried a unique camouflage scheme that went with that locations. The ship had splotches of darker gray (Dunkelgrau52) which were hard edged along with an inverted V on the conning tower.

Inside the package you’ll find a long (over 3 feet) of precut vinyl masks, a picture of U-453 and instructions. The vinyl material is yellow and cut precisely to the blotches needed and the inverted “V” on the tower. There are masks for both sides. The profile drawing exactly matches the cut outs and the instructions give all the needed guidance plus contact info if there are questions. You can see by the pictures the size of the masks.

In the modeling community, Osprey Publishing is well-known. I doubt that there is a modeler in this group who does not have something from Osprey in their bookshelves. They have several ongoing series that tackle a variety of topics, including the ‘Duel’ series. As the title suggests, each book concentrates on two similar pieces of equipment and how they stack up against each other. The sixty-sixth volume of the duel series tackles the opening campaign of the Second World War – the fall of Poland in the early fall of 1939. The author of the volume is David R. Higgins and the illustrator of the color plates is Richard Chasemore. At 80 pages of text, this is a fairly standard length for this series.

During the early 1930’s, the nation of Czechoslovakia was a leading European arms manufacturer, whose armaments industry was dominated by the giant Skoda conglomerate. In 1933-34, Skoda produced what became known as the LT vz.35 light tank, and this was accepted into the Czech Army, becoming its main tank. However, the tank suffered from numerous flaws, and was much disliked by its crews. Enter the firm of CKD, a conglomeration of various engineering firms, one of whose acquisitions was the Praga Works, makers of trucks/passenger vehicles/tractors. Praga decided to go into the tank building business, selling its products both to the Czech Army, and a number of export markets. With the poor experience with the LT vs.35 in their minds, as well as the need for rearmament due to the rise of Nazi Germany on its border, the Czech military looked around for a new tank design. Praga offered up its TNH design, which proved very reliable and certainly better than anything Skoda had to offer.