Never before I built Wildcat so it is my real pleasure to first one be from Eduard. Its their brand new kit and as always, very good selection!! Scale is 1/48 and in this moment new releases is available. For this very first kit, they choose model F4F-3, ProfiPACK, stock code is 82201. As you guess, rich and good kit package, box have so nice art of Wildcat in fight. Inside box is first at all full color assembly booklet with appendix, to correct some error made inside. So take a look first all this, make a good insight into instruction before start build. Same kit come on six fret, on of those is transparent, of very precise made parts, then pre painted etched set, mask and two sheet of decals. Plastic parts look extraordinary and assembly instruction indicate some a bit sophisticated built stage, as with engine mount and landing gear.

Build

What really is interesting is intensive deep green color of the cockpit interior. Wildcat is known by that feature and tanks to some preserved samples of this color, I managed good selection of paint from my side. So entire parts are primed black while they are still on frets and then was removed, semi assembled and painted green. Not all parts are in green color, some elements are in grey color and this is mostly related to landing gear parts.

[See image gallery at www.letletlet-warplanes.com] Cockpit is first to be done and there is few variations, depends from which version you choose to built. There is much in use etched parts and they provide options, as well some area can be also be covered with decals. From my side I used etched parts as much as possible. They are mostly painted and no need to be painted. Note that some elements are in interior deep green color, so those who have no paints recommended in assembly instruction, can use it as reference for own mix of paint. Cockpit are consist of front section with instrument panel on it, rear section with frame and pilot seat (of course several other elements), and two side consoles with instruments. They are separately made and then joined together, side consoles connect all together, they are to be glued into their pin holes. There is not much to be add on cockpit fuselage sides.

Engine mount is a bit complicated, need attention and experience and is good reason that this kit need a bit advanced modeler. Basic part is L14 and it present fuselage frame with wing span. This span make guide rail in later step when wing have to be attached. So on this frame, painted in grey by the way, goes first element painted dark and over it is to be built structure from very tiny parts. True- they are so accurate and their position is so precisely determinate, so it make it somehow not so problematical to be assembled. Other good thing is that they correct and direct each other, for example the first three things to be placed are engine mount parts L22, L23 and N35 and over them comes rear engine section N4. It lay over previous mentioned mounts into proper slot so when place it, it correct their positions, angles and even push it precise into their slots if they are not placed properly. So my advice is to do this assembly step into one pas, later could be problem to remove mount if it is not good place from very start. So- place L22, L23, N34 and N4 in one pass!! Once you did it, rest of assembly will go absolutely easy, few remained parts will be placed with absolute precision and easy.

That is most complicated part of the build and after that, rest goes with less attention. Now need to assembly two fuselage half’s, front section with engine mount and cockpit. Inside fuselage is depression where frames need to go, simply press inside assembly section and use capillary action cement to fix it in place. Close with another fuselage part, if need use some holders and leave it to dry.

Wings are so easy to build, thanks to fact that they don’t carry much, so whole interior parts are cooler with etched part on it. They also have guns but they will be used at very end, when kit is completed. Wings at bottom need to carry pylon and there is holes which need to additionally drill. If you miss this drill, no worry, outside you will see two rings at bottom, you can drill it from outside at very end of build. So you have port and starboard wing, each have top and bottom part, elevon and cooler. So simple. Join it all and then just slide on fuselage, you have so precise where they have to be place. Overall impression of the kit parts are highest possible, Eduard did masterpiece of engineering and part design.

[See image gallery at www.letletlet-warplanes.com] Rear fuselage have horizontal tail elements and of course vertical. This vertical comes as rudder only, vertical is build in with fuselage. This vertical rudder is one of elements which proof top design of kit, it have two sides and central side, which goes inside this half’s once when they are joined together. This give most authentic look of rudder, you should take a look on high resolution archive photos and see how details are amazingly captured.

Now front section of kit and there comes engine cowling and engine. Three parts create engine cowling and engine is consisted from just four parts and this is enough to make so authentic look engine! What really impress me is that Eduard did not waste time to make rear section of radial engine, they are not visible and who need extra detailed engine, it can be obtained as separate product. This what get in kit is just enough, simply and perfect! Once the engine is completed, and before that painted, put it on rear engine, mounted before and just slide engine cowling over it. This is it, engine completed in short time.

Landing gear is next and due to complexity of parts, I would like also to recommend to do em all in one pass, to allow them to correct it self into proper assembly position. They are all placed on fuselage frame and with some care, no matter of complex look, they can be completed fast. Lets explain- parts L1 and L2 goes on main landing gear elements. But angles are not explained in assembly, they are attached on bottom section of engine assembly. They have its slots so this is not big problem. Then comes parts L6 and L7 which give absolute proper angles and fix all landing gear into proper geometry!! It look complicate but it is not, just do it in one pass and not problem at all. This mean not to use extreme fast cement, apart you are incredible fast and precise builder. When this is over, just need to put two parts for landing gear doors and this step is over.

[See image gallery at www.letletlet-warplanes.com] In next step have to do rear wheel and main wheels. Main wheel don’t have to be done in this step, better do em later. Note tat wheel cover is black inside and camouflage color outside!! In front of landing gear are two slot to place exhaust pipes. Cockpit interior just need to place gun sight and you can then prepare cockpit canopy parts. Cockpit canopy have windshield and two options for sliding hood, open or closed one. I select closed variant. Over them need to put mask and put it on fuselage and close cockpit. Few ore small parts need to be placed, like aerial must but some other like signal lights, pylons, guns… best to use it at very end.

Painting

Grumman Wildcat is so interesting as well no other US Naval fighter, used almost all known fighter camouflage patterns during its wartime service. It start with aluminum pattern and end with Sea Blue overall camouflage, so Eduard will have many of variations and options for this kit. Above is mentioned Bronze-Green interior color and it is used on Grumman built airplanes, all those built by GM-Eastern Aircraft have standard Interior green cockpit. Sample machine I decide to built had standard two tone camouflage of Blue Grey at the top surface and Light Gull Grey at bottom surface. For a long time I was bother by presentation of the Blue Grey, from some reason, many times shown as medium grey blue color, and actual color was far darker.

Presented here is VF-11 F4F panel (photos courtesy of R. A. Leonard). Plane was flown by Naval Ace Lt(JG) William N. Leonard and his VF-3 plane was a standard VF-3 F4F-4 mount, overall blue-grey with light grey undersides, VF-3 insignia on the instrument panel access hatch. So, his F4F, bureau number 5244, was struck below to the hangar deck where they painted over the white 25 with blue-grey, and when dry, painted on a fresh white 13. This panel shown above was removed from this sample which was exposed to tropical sunlight for a few months and as you see, it is still so dark. This artefact is kept in collection of his son.

Painting I did start with tiny coat of black primer and then I paint camouflage colors. I use my own option for Blue Grey and it look suitable for me. Once they was completely dry, I paint a coat of gloss varnish and kit is ready for decals.

First US Navy Ace in WW2

I decided to make kit under letter C in Eduard painting list, airplane flown by Lieutenant Edward H. Butch O’Hare. Edward “Butch” O’Hare graduated from the Naval Academy in 1937. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down five Japanese planes on 20 February 1942, while he was defending USS Lexington during an attempted a raid on the enemy base Rabaul. Butch O’Hare was a naval aviator who became the U.S. Navy’s first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. He was killed in action Nov. 26, 1943. In 1949 the Chicago, Ill., airport was renamed O’Hare International Airport in his honor.

Kit have early markings with red-white strips on vertical rudder and national insignia in six positions. That was early stars, no bars, with red dot inside white star. His personal machine have F-3 on fuselage sides, numbers 3 on the wing top surface and small victory marks under the cockpit, on both sides. Also there is unit insignia, just under the windscreen sides. Once the decals was applied on kit, I have gloss coat them and did some wash to represent some dirt and fade out of panels.

Final works

Not much remained at the final, attaching main wheels, guns, propeller. Protection of mask is removed at that stage and some additional wash strokes was done, to enhance engine exhaust trace at bottom. All navigation lights was place at very end as well two pylon at wing bottom. Photo of the original Butch O’Hare airplane indicate so dark color of this pylons, I decide to use black color but have no data for real color, so take care.

Eduard once again did outstanding job in releasing new kit project and I am definitely amazed with quality of this kit. Definitely will give my maximum recommendation for this kit, which you can find here! Big thanks to Eduard for sample kit for review!!

Srećko Bradić

The Hawker Typhoon was released in four different packages and we present here a sample kit of Hawker Typhoon Mk. Ib, stock code BRP72004. The kit features a late version of the machine with bubble canopy. The kit comes in very nice design box with excellent art on the front side and painting instruction at the reverse side. Box content is instruction leaflet, excellent printed decal sheet, transparent parts fret, small etched set (pilot belts and foot step) and three frets with injected plastic parts. Brengun has released an etched upgrade set, stock code BRL72048 and it includes details for the interior, landing flaps and missile details. Both of them, aircraft kit as well accessory set, is included here in this build review.

First impression shows that parts are precisely molded with very little flash on some parts. One of the elements on the parts is ejection pins but this does not present any problem in work.  I painted a first coat of Interior grey green and after that add some areas in black. From the side frame structure I have removed standard elements and replaced them with etched parts from extra set. The cockpit interior consists of the side tubular frame, rear and front elements, bottom structure, seat, pilot controls and instruments. Not many parts but they are so precisely made and the final look when completed is very authentic.

One of the elements needing to be completed before fuselage assembly is the front cooling radiator. It consists of three parts and they need a bit sanding for perfect match to each other. Before fuselage halves assembly you need to fit the cockpit assembly, radiator and tail wheel. Parts match is good and very little pressure is needed to hold parts during cement drying.

Wing assembly consist of the several parts, one set is for the landing gear boxes and the same wing consist of one bottom part and two top parts. Landing gear interior is very well made with complete interior structure and small parts like high pressure bottles making this section very attractive and detailed. When assembled they need to be cement at the wing bottom. After dry run of the top wing parts, I noted that I needed a bit of sanding of the box surfaces to manage perfect join of the wing elements. Please take a note before wing parts assembly what final variants you need to do. If you’d like to attach the rocket missiles, you need to alter row of holes in order to place rails in after kit assembly. Also, you need to remove plastic flaps and replace them with better detailed etched parts from additional set.

One of the basic kit extras is the additional elements for the rear fuselage. In the case you need to do sample machine with different horizontal tail chord, you need to cut off  the tail elements and replace them with the alternative one. This kit also has two types of horizontal tail with chord thickness as  the main difference. This kit does not demand much filler for corrections and plastic is very good. I also recommend you carefully study the reference image of the particular airplane you are planning to build as the kit also has parts for guns with removed fairings. The cockpit canopy is two-piece and it allows the cockpit to be open, a feature much preferred by most modelers.

My choice of the final kit fell to the machine 18 P from 440th Canadian Squadron. I had a problem there as one letter in the aircraft registration was not correct and to regret the 18 P letters need to be a bit bolder. As well the basic serial was not correct, I used some freedom and did similar machine from same unit and with same fuselage letters. Basic kit recommend machine with D-Day stripes and the sample I built did not have this markings. Basic camouflage is Dark Green and Ocean Grey at the top with Medium grey at bottom. Airplanes on images show some level of operational weathering and wear-and-tear of the paint so I did the same on the kit.

Final assembly included placing of the all transparent parts on the kit and some additional wash of dirt. I am impressed with the kit! Compared with available data and images, it is a very precisely made kit and more or less easy to assemble. A bit of problems with decals are maybe less important when we have accurate kit- the same can be found in spare box, hand painted or replaced with other. With extra etched parts included this Typhoon present excellent choice!!! Kit order here and etched set here!

Big thanks to Brengun team who provided this sample kit.

Srecko Bradic

The kit we’re focusing on here is stock number 1170, named “P-38J over Europe.” The box design is excellent with nice cover art and the content is very rich also! The basic set consists of seven grey and one transparent plastic frets and the tires are presented in rubber. Then we come to the Eduard products. First off are a large number of resin parts, cast in excellent detail and top quality. These parts bring ultimate quality to the kit. Next up are the two sheets of photoetched parts, one with painted elements and the other (mostly with parts for the exterior) unpainted. Another standard feature is the quick mask sheet, perfectly shaped and cut, and no problem to lift from their base paper. The decals are printed on a large sheet and in the top possible quality. The instruction booklet is well made, easy to follow and with instructions to finish six different machines.

The interior is great on this model thanks to the fact that most of the original kit elements are replaced by Eduard resin and photoetched parts. No matter the complex shape and large number, assembly of the cockpit is easy to do and takes just a day or two to construct. Everything nests in place perfectly and matches in authenticity archive images of the real machine. During construction I have changed some steps. The original instructions direct that the cockpit section should be mounted to the fuselage/wing top section but I found that It is easier to place it dry in the bottom section and then install the top section (plastic parts A1 and A2). When precisely positioned in place, just pour superglue from the front side and fix the resin cockpit to the bottom plastic part. Then the rest is easy—use your regular model glue on the plastic parts and merge upper and lower wing together with the cockpit assembly in between.

Some difficulties occurred during assembly of the landing gear wells into the nacelle booms. Simple to say, these parts demand some force and clamps to keep everything in order. Beyond the plastic assembly, Eduard has provided very good etched parts for these sections and they bring much life to the kit. What I especially like are the hinges for the landing gear doors. They are easy to place on the doors but you will need much care during final assembly to give them strength at the bonding area. I did not use parts F 17 (two of these) at this time. Some images show that these are yellow, much different than the color of the interior. I painted these two parts separately and installed them at the very end of kit final assembly. Other parts I finished and installed at the end were the Eduard resin wheels. I’m sure you will agree that it is far better to complete them separately and add them at the end of the build.

Take care when mounting the nose elements on the kit. These need some care to achieve a good fit. Also take care to put enough weight in the nose—there is ample space in the nose to do this.

As I said, some parts are better to be placed at the very end, after the entire kit is painted and varnished. To the previous mentioned parts I would also like to recommend installing the machine gun parts (A20, A21, A22, A23 and A24), resin turbochargers R9 (two parts) and the entire propeller assemblies. Proposed paint schemes for the kit are beautiful and there are machines in natural metal and camouflage. My choice was the camouflaged aircraft whose pilot achieved several air-to-air kills in this machine.

Further Update

Soon after Eduard released this kit on the market, they delivered an excellent photoetch set for additional upgrading of the Lightning plastic kit. This set has stock number 48748 and inside is one large etched set with a number of exterior parts. The landing gear receives the most prominent update with this set. I like very much the new etched covers and interior structure of the landing gear doors as well as interior parts for the sidewalls.

More Lightnings

Fortunately kit 1170 is not the only new one released by Eduard. They already have introduced an Early Lightnings kit and have just released Pacific Lightnings. These kits are also based on the Academy 1/48 products and also provide full quality materials in the same fashion as the kit whose images you see here.

Final words…..

I have no idea how good the choice of the Academy kit is as a basic starting point for their products, but with the power of Eduard parts these become the most valuable and detailed P-38 kits on the market. I am afraid that I cannot recommend this kit to novice modelers but in the hands of an experienced modeler this product can be built without problem into a prize-winning model. The final appearance is so impressive and it is really worth purchasing. Here is how to get them:

P-38J over Europe / P-38 Early / P-38 Pacific Lightnings / P-38 upgrade set

Special thanks to Eduard for providing the sample products built and presented in this review!

Srecko Bradic

The first kit delivered is the Bf 110E and the stock number is 7083. It comes in the usual ProfiPack edition and this includes many good elements alongside the standard injected parts. Inside the box is eight frets of injected parts (one being the transparent items), one sheet of quick-masks, excellent decal sheet and a sheet of photoetched parts, many of them painted. Also, of course, is the nice assembly instruction booklet.

The versions you can make directly from the box are for the E version, but the manufacturer has taken attention of future kit development by including several extra parts, such as the long fuselage and wheels which will not be used on this version. Decals are provided for five airplanes and cover machines used by Germany and Iraq.

Assembly goes smoothly regardless of the large number of parts included. This kit is good for even less skilled or experienced modelers. The whole interior can be built-up in one day and this is the most complex section to construct. The parts are all perfect in shape and fit together nicely. After assembly of the cockpit the next step is to mate it with the fuselage and ad a few other elements after that. During work on the cockpit you can also build up the wings and empennage and prepare them for mating with the fuselage later. After installing all the main elements the transparencies are next to be installed, and Eduard has included closed and open options. To make the masking easier, I suggest placing all the masks on the canopy parts first, and then install them on the fuselage. From my point of view this gives an easy way to mask the complex canopy framing.

There are many sensitive parts to be assembled in the final stages of assembly. There are the several counterweights under the wing, landing gear details, and radio equipment. The landing gears are of rather complex design but there are no problems in assembly. Simply take care of the angles and positions of the parts while assembling.

Parts which I recommend installing after the kit is finished are:

• A17—First place the wing cross and then apply this part on order to get better decal fitting.
• A13—The aerial mast should be installed after removing the canopy masks for best result.
• D2—The landing light cover on wing leading edge is best installed after all painting is completed.

From the available paint schemes I chose to use the sample which is also shown on the box art, machine G9+JM, from 4./NJG 1. This is a very interesting scheme as it was in overall black with the topsides later overpainted in maritime green. I sprayed the entire kit black and after drying I placed all the main decals. I mention “main” because it is my guess that most (if not all) stencils on the top surfaces were covered with the green paint. On one archive photo it is seen that paint was applied around the main markings.

This is really a pleasant kit to build and best of all is that Eduard has announced new versions of kits to be delivered to the marketplace. This is for sure great news for all those who love this airplane. The sample shown here can be ordered at this link.

Srecko Bradic

Sample kit provided by Eduard

Not so far from the Mons railways station, the hall of expo of the “Grands Prés” is really big and not only you have a “traditional” model expo with clubs, sellers and a contest, but also other parts of the hall that are occupied by RC cars, ships and aircrafts & helicopters; wargaming with figures and trains. The possibility to make face painting gives to that expo an exceptional family athmosphère.

There were lots of nice models exposed. This year, the sellers were less numerous and every people I discussed with have found that the prices of the kits were heavy… Crisis limits the possibility to make good catches… Personnally I came back home with just two 1/72 RetrokiT kits (that I will present here in a few days)and a Saab Tunnan from AZ Models

With some friends, we had convinced to make face-painting, for a photo. But seeing what the “Face/Off” team (a mix of British and Belgian people) can do, we quickly found that it coul be more funny to have all scarfaces!!! I must say we had big success during the expo, many people wondering if there were a “dogfight” some times earlier in the day… Until they discover the Face/Of stand!

As always when I’m going to Mons, it’s the opportunity to meet friends from Belgium of course, but also from France and England. Discussion and projects were numerous, drinking of course good Belgian beers: Leffe and Kriek!

The contest was important for what concerns figures and tanks. There were less aircrafts, but quality was very high. I’m glad to have won a gold medal with my “Da Vinci’s Tortoise”…

Next year I will come back…

Daniel Clamot

The kit comes in a large, tightly packed box with nice art on the cover. In the box you’ll find four sprues  of grey/brown plastic, one fret with transparent plastic parts, two sheets of etched parts (one painted), one quick protective mask and a nice assembly instructions booklet plus two sheets of decals.

The assembly of the kit is quite easy and the parts almost fit on their own – very precise molding work! At first, the cockpit needs to be assembled as it needs to be painted throughout with the RLM 02 colour as the base colour. Detailing is great thanks to the excellent quality of the etched parts. The next section to be assembled is the engine compartment. And there we have the first problem.

The same kit is designed to be assembled with engine cowlings open and the engine itself is a nice piece of engineering. The  problem is the that many modellers prefer to assemble the kit „buttoned up“ keeping cowlings, hatches etc. closed. (Vis-à-vis to those who prefer to open all possible access panels on a kit.) So, if you try to close the engine cowlings this is not possible. Assembling the kit without the engine is not possible as it holds the exhaust stacks as well the propeller shaft. So, I find it sad that I had to cut off the upper half of the engine; after that the engine cowlings fit perfectly.

The fuselage is too long by 4 mm,  and this is too much in a 1/48 scale kit of a relatively small airplane. How that could be happen after tons of published materials, available blueprints, manuals and preserved airplanes, is hard to answer. The entire rear section of the fuselage looks like it was simply stretched back. The vertical tail is fine in shape, though, and the errors with the shape and dimensions of the wings are tolerable.

Initially I wanted to make the plane as flown by Hptm. Hannes Trautloft but as I noted that fuselage markings are a bit larger than called for and the shape of the camouflage pattern is not as on the actual airplane, I decided to make the first machine proposed in the instructions and that was the plane flown by Ofw. Kurt Ubben from the 6.(J)/Tragergruppe 186, March 1940. One thing I noted in the decals is that Eduard suggested to use the unit symbol, a witch flying on a broomstick. This symbol was removed in the winter of 1939/40 so this could not be seen in spring as instruction propose.

The kit is painted in base RLM 65 colour with the top side splinter camouflage in colors RLM 02 and 71. The images available show that this paint has faded out and the airplane shows some degree of maintenance and operational wear and tear. The decals were set up perfectly and they are of top quality print work.

Unfortunately, due to the above mentioned inaccuracies, I cannot recommend this kit. It looks nice when completed, it is easy to assemble but this is the end of good news. I hope that Eduard realizes the importance of replacing the fuselage components with new ones and to revise the engine compartment assembly so that it would be possible to assemble it with cowling closed without the need to cut the engine in half. If you wish to buy the kit despite the aforementioned inaccuracies,
please click here!

Srecko Bradic

Thanks to Eduard for the sample kit for review.

Eduard kit present here is Eduard stock number 8233 and it show kit from ProfiPack serie, with a lot of features inside. Plastic exception present separate hump/vertical parts with some small additional parts, all placed in separate fret and this is actually parts for SMT model. For all of you who has build any of Eduard MiG-21 before, it is clearly that build of this kit also goes smooth and even with any of complex schemes provided inside this kit can be done within ten days or less. In few words- kit have several plastic frets, nice assembly booklet, resin rocket launcher set, etched parts, protective mask and two set of decals inside.

My advice is to take care from the very start which version you will build as well there is some minor variations in their content. From the very start you need to choose from open or closed cockpit but final models have some minor differences in parts used. Build could be run in parallel lines so you can work on cockpit, wings and hump assembly in the same time and this could much accelerate your build. There is not much of paints need for interior and if you use any fast drying, you can do this job really fast. No issue were spotted during all assembly steps and this is result of the very good design of parts as well precise guide in available kit documentation.

Where you need much care and attention is during the decals setting. There is two decal sheet, one for the stencils and another for the national and unit markings. Please note that there is not much images of SMT at all and all are not of perfect quality to capture details. I was lucky to et some images of preserved machines and noted that all stencils are a bit fade and that bottom one’s were in black color.

This kit is one of the kit which really my modeling time a really pleasure. Completed kit with open cockpit really capture eye and with camouflage pattern is really attractive. I have used two additional sets on this kit but even if you build it in basic form it will be nice at all. This kit can be direct order here and build is show on our forum!

Srecko Bradic

Sample kit is provided by Jan Zdiarsky, from Eduard
For assembly of this kit was used cement and tools from Albion Alloys and decal set material from HobbyShop

Arrive of this kit make nice chance to make some in detail analyze with the images of the real subject so whole of this build was made with close up following of the available archive material. First thing what is was on work order is the cockpit. Main elements of the cockpit were floor, seat, rear bulkhead, two side consoles, instrument panel, pilot stick and directional controls. First thing I noted is the flat floor and it have some like duct mid section. In order to make it more realistic I have cut off this mid section and cement on bottom plastic sheet. In the gap I have add all known wires and pipes I was able to see. Similar problem I have noted with consoles as well on port side it was only top panel while the bottom is open with much of pipelines and  cables visible. This was adopted with removing much of plastic from part D7 and converting into proper look. Off course, all of this was refer to F6F-3 model.

All interior was in the Interior Green color but as well early model have grey rear section, I have spray this in grey. Consoles have black instruments and when all of this is painted parts need to be enhanced with excellent etched parts. Etched parts cover instruments panel, pilot seat belts and many of the control sticks inside. As well many parts are so small, you need much care in handling.

Merging of fuselage sides with interior is absolutely smooth with no gap or any fit issues. Simply perfect! One thing I do not like and think that Eduard did not solve this in proper way is the fuselage top, just behind the cockpit. First to note that Eduard kit cover all major production samples except the first one, which have some details different. One of features which make difference among the major series of F6F-3 and F6F-5 is the small windows on fuselage side just behind canopy. F6F-3 did have it but F6F-5 in general did not. Eduard solve this with placing two sets of parts, both sets are mold in clear plastic so choice is the with windows or not. Problem is the possible fit as well it is not sure that many modelers would be able to make stepped join of this section and therefore much of the originality could be lost. My opinion is that there could be better if they could make full plastic fuselage with just open places for windows, which could be with easy filed and sanded if modelers work later version. Solution is only to make absolute care in work on this part and use some very liquid cement to fix it in place, otherwise, the use of standard glue could result in glue leak on join line and this could require additional work to solve this.

Wings are also nice mold and very simply, you need to assemble two top and two bottom parts and work is complete. I would like to suggest to avoid use of parts D11 and D10. This part carry machine guns tube but problem is that they will make problem in access section between them on leading edge and sand of the exceed glue. I did not use this parts and machine gun tube was later made from Albion Alloys tubes.

Wings and horizontal tail are mounted on fuselage slots and must say that this is smart solution to get very rigid connection with this parts in correct angle. Placing of the landing gear is the next step and it going so easy. Maybe better not to completely finish landing gear, let the tires wait to be mounted in last step of build, this will make much easy painting. One important point- part D27 present tail wheel and it must have panel line on the middle. Please note this, do not sand this. Problem is that this part come on the place where mold is separating so maybe some modelers could think it is mold release flush.

It is on you are you going to use some of the external stores or not. Eduard give nice elements to make war loaded machine as well there is various rockets, fuel tanks as well bombs. Please note that among the parts which are not allowed for use in this pack, is the parts 28 and 29 and it look like the cannons mounted later on Hellcats in French service. This promise that we will have in future some very nice releases from Eduard, like French machines.

Engine assembly goes easy and it is welcome that Eduard provide some etched parts like electric wires for engine, it is easy to place and give extra good look! My suggestion is to take attention which version you will built as well you have three different models of engine cowling. Please note that you can place cowling on fuselage an complete paint it and later take it of, place engine and turn engine cowling back. This make protection work minimum and complete work much easy.

For painting you have provided five samples to be completed. First at all is the machine flown by VF-16 on USS Lexington, white 32 on fuselage. Note that available image of this machine show it in very worn out look. Next one is machine flown by Lt. C. K. Hilderbrandt from VF-33. Under C were provided Hellcat flown by Lt. William C. Moeseley from USS Yorktown. It is well known machine with hand painted ferry number 890 on cowling and this number was later painted over. To regret, Eduard miss to provide correct number under the wing which need to be much larger. Also this machine were much worn out in service. Nice to see that next machine is the one flown by Alexander Vraciu, famous one with number 19 and which is subject of this build. Last one is the Sample from VF-27, USS Princetown, flown by Lt. Richard E. Stambook.

Kit have some issues with panels but this is minor problem. In general kit is nice detailed, very easy to assemble and with nice decals. Very recommended!!!

Srecko Bradic

Sample kit is provided by Jan Zdiarsky from Eduard

Reference material is always most valuable material you can see in publication so inside Warplanes you can find extracts from manuals, blueprints as well number of archive images. Joined with model build this give top content with almost all in one source for reader. Interesting things that publication is interactive so you can jump from content page on the desired page in publication. Authors are experienced and with reference work published in various publications before. In this moment we have deliver two issues of magazine and you could see them here and here! Magazine info page is here!

Srecko Bradic

This event attracts not only many Dutch people, but also lots of people from Belgium, France, Great Britain, Germany , Poland and the Czech republic!

The photo’s give a short impression of the models shown.

Quality and detailing is more than fantastic!!!

Nico Braas