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Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$7.99

The Eduard MiG-21bis is a very nice kit right out of the box; however, the pitot tube could be better. There are limitations that plastic can’t overcome, not even with the best injection molded technology. Even so, the pitot tube sticks out so far on the MiG-21 that it’s bound to be broken off in handling. Besides, you can get a scale thickness with brass that you couldn’t get any other way.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$40.00

Designed for their Fw-190D-9, this beautiful upgrade set from Eduard is for those who want to show off the detail under the forward cowlings. Featuring six light and dark grey resin pieces, everything is perfectly formed and blemish free. The guns are hollowed out at the ends and the cooling slots are opened as well. There is also a small fret of photo etch that holds seven pieces of nickel plated parts – six cowl fasteners and one windscreen oil cleaning pipe. The oil cleaning pipe will require the most care, as it is very, very thin.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Eagle Editions Ltd.
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$15.50

The Tamiya He-219 is the standard for 1/48th scale models of this airplane. However, marking options have been a little sparse for this kit. Eagle Cal has released a new sheet that covers the three basic paint schemes seen on the Uhu. This set is released in conjunction the Eagle Cals 1/32nd scale decals covering the same aircraft. The 1/48th scale decals cover the A-0, A-7, and the A-2 versions. To build the A-0 and A-2 versions, the modeler would be advised to get the Vector resin conversion set, also available from Eagle Editions.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
AMS Resin
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.99

The diminutive A-37 Dragonfly by Monogram/Encore is a nice kit, but the engine intakes and exhausts leave a little bit to be desired. One way to fix this is to hide the see-through with these covers from AMS Resin.

Molded in light grey resin, these four pieces are beautifully formed. They simply have to be painted red and added to the intake and exhausts. You may want to add Remove Before Flight tags which aren’t included but readily available. Because they are tapered, these are easily added after the model is done so if you already have a built kit, don’t fret, you can add these at any time.

These simple plugs are easy to add, inexpensive, and they do what they are designed to do, cover the intakes and exhausts.

Highly recommended

Thanks to AMS Resin for the review set and IPMS/USA for the review opportunity.

Review Author
Don Norton
Published on
Company
Master Box Ltd
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$24.99

With this kit, Master Box has come up with a creative and animated set of figures. The box contains two sprues with 62 parts in sand yellow plastic. Included are nine figures of US and British soldiers and a small dog. The box art by A. Karaschuk depicts American and British paras in a boxing match in the days leading up to June 6th (the C-47’s in the background all have their invasion stripes). The art is spot-on, and it would have been nice had Master Box given us exactly what was depicted on the box art, but they didn’t, so some detail work to accurize the model is necessary. This is not to imply the figures are not well done. The expressive facial and uniform detail is excellent.

All the figures require clean-up of mold seams with a file or a sanding stick. I usually use tube glue for assembly since it fills gaps. I’ll discuss each figure separately in the order they appear on the box art.

Review Author
Mark Aldrich
Published on
Company
Plusmodel
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$4.60

Sometimes in the model building universe that most of us live in, the planets align just right and a little glimmer of satisfaction shines through. This is the case with these fire extinguishers. I am currently building a conversion of an M3 IDF Sandwich Car. When the review list made its second round and no one had laid claim to the Plusmodel items, I volunteered to do the ones that no one wanted. When they arrived, I thought where and how I could use them instead of just painting and showing them off. Looking over my reference material, I noticed that many of the different Sandwich vehicles and the M3 in particular had fire extinguishers mounted on the right front panel in front of the engine access panel! How neat is that? WooHoo!!!! Confetti everywhere, and too bad not all modeling experiences work out that well.

Review Author
Mark Aldrich
Published on
Company
Plusmodel
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$4.60

Plusmodel has been making resin aftermarket items for as long as I can remember. Many moons ago, I purchased their GI Rats, thinking it was meals and finding out they were actually 1/35 resin rats. The items I have purchased and received since then have been nothing short of excellent. Their line has continued to grow and expand and they offer a wide range of items for the aircraft, armor, and figure modeler in several of the popular scales.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$9.95

It comes as no surprise that I love the Eduard Fw-190A series of kits. Having had the pleasure of building quite a few of them, I have often remarked at the quality of the decals. These decals are printed by Eduard and typical of Eduard’s quality; these decals are actually as good as any other aftermarket decal in the world. They rival the quality of Cartograf.

The stencil decal themselves are all contained on a 4” x 3 ¾” decal sheet. The decals are crisp, perfectly printed, and in perfect register. They are suitably thin with minimal carrier film. One of the nice things is that the decals have wing walk areas in grey and black. There are options throughout the sheet, like the two different versions of black and two white versions of Nicht anfassen on the sheet. The landing gear servicing stencil is also provided in two styles.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$9.95

Eduard’s Bf-109E is a very nice kit. One of the nicest things about the kit is this additional decal sheet. Printed by Eduard, the actual sheet is a 3” x 4” sheet of decal film. There are decals for one complete airplane with all the stencils being included. You get three Nicht anfassen decals for the ailerons in white and black. I thought that there should be at least one more for the elevators but Eduard indicates that they are carried on the elevators so that may be an error on my part.

The instructions are on a double-sided half A4 page sheet and are very clear in showing you where the decals belong. Remember that sometimes the stencils were oversprayed and not every aircraft carries every stencil. I really liked that Eduard provides you with red and black wing walk areas.

Review Author
Roger Rasor
Published on
Company
Trumpeter
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$38.99

It seems amazing to me that Trumpeter is the fourth model company to market a 1/48 scale plastic kit of the Supermarine Attacker F.1 (the others being Classic Airframes, Falcon, and Magna Models). Amazing because this aircraft’s single most significant reason for mention in the history of aviation is the fact that it was the Fleet Air Arm‘s first jet fighter. It was not particularly successful in that role…it was just the first.