Thank you to David Lajer of Aires/Quickboost and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for the privilege of reviewing this delightful aftermarket resin set. The Hobby Boss F8F kit is wonderful in its own right, but the replacement gun barrels add quite an eye-catching detail in a highly visible part of the kit.

A single casting plug with 2 longer and 2 shorter barrels is in the package, molded in medium brownish-gray colored polyurethane resin. The application is very simple; use the appropriate Quickboost barrels to replace kit parts E6 and E5. This is a direct, drop-in replacement; all you need to do is carefully remove the barrels from the casting plug.

The Maschinen Krieger universe is a science fiction universe created by Japanese artist and sculptor Kow Yokoyama in the 1980s. To develop the storyline, Kow Yokoyama collaborated with Hiroshi Ichimura as story editor and Kunitaka Imai as graphic designer. The three creators drew visual inspiration from their combined interest in World War I and World War II armor and aircraft, the American space program, and films such as Star Wars, Blade Runner and The Road Warrior. Inspired by the ILM model builders who worked on Star Wars, Yokoyama built the original models with parts from numerous kits, including armor, aircraft, and automobiles. He mostly concentrated on powered armor suits, but later included bipedal walking tanks and aircraft with anti-gravity systems.

Squadron and SuperScale have released a decal sheet, #481266, with USAAF national insignia for the period June 1943 to January 1947. This decal sheet does not include the red border around the circle and bars. As such, I believe the markings are only valid from September 1943 until 1947, not from June 1943 as listed in the decal sheet title.

The sheet includes decals for scale diameters of 25”, 30”, 35”, 36”, 40” and 55”. They are very shiny and printed by Cartograf (i.e. – good quality decals). The decal sheet instruction includes a location map for P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47 and P-51 aircraft.

Decals are thin, yet strong. I was able to float them onto the model and then easily relocate them for final placement until dry. They settled into the recessed panel lines with a minimal application of Micro Set. At the same time, the decals are opaque and have a vibrant color.

In just a few words: they are excellent decals.

Quickboost has added the seat for the P-51D Mustang to their line of resin aircraft accessories. This latest addition is molded in a grayish resin, smooth, seamless and bubble-free. The seat is molded in one piece and is easy to remove from the mold block.

The package doesn’t state that it is for any particular kit, so it should work well with any of the P-51D Mustang kits. I compared it with the Tamiya kit’s seat. Talk about a noticeable difference – the detail on the Quickboost part is outstanding. From the photos you can see that the Quickboost seat has the belts molded , and you can almost feel the seat material in the cushion under the belts. You will definitely want to have the canopy open for this.

With the release several years ago of the Italeri and Airfix quarter-scale BAE Hawk kits, many of us U.S naval aviation fans wondered if we would finally see a mainstream kit of the T-45 Goshawk. Following on their other notable naval air kits, Kinetic Model Kits now offers this very detailed rendition of the Navy’s newest intermediate/advanced jet trainer.