Next step in our long review of Eduard PE parts for the HK B-17 kit. Ongoing thanks to Eduard for providing us these sets… !

Having opened one other B-17 many years ago in 1/48th, using the Paragon resin flap and bomb bay sets, I vowed not to do that ever again, not due to the fault of the parts, but because it made it extremely difficult to move the model around. Here I am again, with an even LARGER model… But it’s worth it in the end!

This upgrade seriously improves the appearance of the kit parts by having you replace the sidewalls with PE sheet, and styrene truss bracing. Added afterwards are Gussets with excellent rivet detail. What that does is brings the detail level over the top… it just looks a lot better in this scale. The catwalk has improved rails and sides as well. Additional placards and bulkhead details are added, and in the end (it does take a while) everything comes together.

Hasegawa has produced the first production model of the Osprey VTOL transport in 1/72 scale, the MV-22B. In 1988, Italeri came out with a kit (# 175) of the preproduction version, which was designated at that time the V-22A (later to be changed to MV-22A). It would be very difficult to modify the MV-22A into the "B" model. Thankfully, modelers do not have that problem now due to Hasegawa's latest release. This article will not go into the long history of VTOL aircraft or into the difficult development of the Osprey that can be found in other sources. (such as The Dream Machine: the untold history of the notorious V-22 Osprey by Richard Whittle, 2010).

The MiG-21F-13 was one of the early variants of the MiG-21 series, and as far as I know this is the first injection-molded kit of the aircraft in 1/48 scale. The kit comes in an appropriately sized box with some nice artwork on the cover. Inside the box, there are 9 sprues of cleanly molded medium grey parts, four of which are dedicated to underwing and under fuselage stores. Most of the major parts have their sprue attachment points molded on the mating surface, rather than on the edge of the part, which means that you don’t have those ugly sprue attachment areas to deal with when cleaning up the seams. I thought that was a nice touch and I hope that other manufacturers will start molding their kits in the same way. The panel lines are recessed and nicely done, and the rivet detail is present but restrained. The surface seems to have a very slight roughness to it, but it disappears under a coat of primer.

Hobby Boss continues to release new and interesting military subjects from China’s People’s Liberation Army. If you look at their catalog, over the past several years they have released a variety of kits based on armored cars, for example, this kit is similar to the Hobby Boss kit no. 82485, Wheeled Tank Destroyer, though the vehicle for this kit is a later variant. The HJ 9 missile system is paired with a WZ550 APC. It entered service in the 1990s and was first seen in public in the Beijing military parade in 1999. There is a crew of three and can be controlled from inside the vehicle. It appears that it’s still in service and in production.

Pro-Modified cars are some of the most killer machines on the planet! I mean what is not to love about an old muscle car that has been stretched, chopped, and a throwing a HUGE powerful engine under the hood? They combine power, speed, coolness and creativity into some crowd pleasing machinery. Dick Brown Motorsports runs this beautifully modified 1955 Crown Victoria with a stretched Boss 429 engine. I have no idea the last time this monster raced. I know it was driven by Norm Wizner, who also appears to be a custom builder as well as a driver. He runs a customizing shop that has a 2005 copyright on it and all the links on the bottom page were bad. I was able to find two photographs of this real machine and only one of them had a date on it…..2011. Norm must love the Fords. In 1987 he built the Mega Ford to take on the Chevys on the circuit.