History Brief

The Sikorsky Sea King became operational with the United States Navy in June 1961. When introduced, the Sea King was a considerable advancement over previous helicopters. It was used primarily for anti-submarine warfare: detecting and tracking Soviet submarines. During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy built a submarine fleet that at one point included more than 200 operational submarines. Luckily for the Soviets the highly capable Sea King never had to kill one of their subs.

A perfect addition to your diorama or display base is this Aires Aerobonus figure. This figure is designed to be ascending a ladder to a 1960-1975 USAF Fighter. Aires Aerobonus provides you with a resin figure with separate arms on one pour stub with side bars to protect the figure. Of note is the re-sealable packaging that Quickboost uses that makes the parts easy to review and then stuff back into the package securely. The supplied instructions provide color drawings for painting.

Aires Aerobonus has molded the figure in light grey resin with no bubbles that I could find. There are no mold seams to sand off and the resin plug is easily removed from the bottom with a razor saw or Dremel. Clean up was quite easy and the arms attached with superglue. I added a just a bit of putty to refined the transition on the shoulders to the arms. The sculpting is great with the proportions of the figure perfect. The pressure suit is well executed with appropriate wrinkles and folds.

Background

Manufactured in Korea and marketed as a “premium sport sedan,” Hyundai’s Azera shares the marketplace with Toyota’s Avalon, Ford’s Taurus, and Lexus’ LS 350.

The Kit

Engineered to be built without paint or glue, Academy’s Azera seems targeted for the casual builder, beginning modeler, and the full-size Azera owner. Although targeted for less-experienced modelers, Academy has provided ample detail for the more serious or advanced modeler as well.

3D Model Parts is a new U.S. based company that uses 3D printing technology to produce resin ship, automobile, aircraft, and armor detailing accessories. 3D states their printing process produces details with greater precision than either injection molding or resin casting.

This set of 1/25 scale wheels certainly lives up to that claim! The spokes have amazingly fine detail, and the wheel rims are extremely thin. The interlacing of the spokes makes the wheels very realistic at this small size. I compared the 3D wheels to wire wheels from a Revell kit and there is no comparison. 3D accurately reproduces the opening between spokes, where many of the openings on the Revell wheels are filled with flash.

Ultracast from Canada has released several detail sets for the Eduard Spitfire MkIX in 1/48 scale.

This particular set is a drop-in replacement for the Spitfire propeller. It has been casted in a pale cream-colored resin with a delicate pour stub that will make removal an easy task. There are no bubbles or surface defects anywhere.

The only difference I can see between the kit’s propeller and the Ultracast version is the propeller’s blade chord being a bit wider in the resin parts. Moving on to the spinner, the resin version has rivet detail that the plastic part is missing.

From an assembly point of view, the replacement propeller differs from the plastic part in that each blade comes as a separate piece, meaning you have to set the proper pitch to each blade. However, the resin pour tab includes a small cube-shape piece that will take care of that. Nice touch Ultracast!