VMA131Marine

There’s very little difference externally between a late Mk.II and the Mk.Va. I think the main thing is going to be the prop and spinner because the later Mk.IIs had the enlarged oil cooler with the circular opening. So, the Va makes sense just from the point of view of maximising the use of the molds. The Mk.Vb and Mk.Vc will each need a new wing mold and later Vb’s and Vc’s had a new armoured windscreen so additional clear parts will be required. Kotare is a small company with essentially one product at this point and I’m sure they need to maximise income so they can fund kits of new subjects.

The seat is just horrible too. It looks the same as the one in the Trumpeter 1/24 kit. It’s so bad it isn’t even inaccurate; accuracy assumes there are measurements you can compare.

Look carefully, they are ribbed.

That “feature” is directly copied from the Trumpeter 1/24 and HobbyBoss 1/32 kits. The Border cockpit looks like the Trumpeter 1/24 kit as it has the fictitious floor and a seat that bears no resemblance to any Spitfire seat ever.

I know the Lightning had problems with fires in the tail but this is just piling on On this next one, how has the Harvard not already dragged its wingtip:

International postage costs are eye-watering almost everywhere except for some Chinese eBay sellers.

Border Models show boxart for the Dambuster version of the 1/32 Lancaster and a new 1/35 Nakajima B5N2 Kate https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=709515484508537&id=100063502759736&set=a.709330214527064&mibextid=qC1gEa

Hasegawa is a tiny company compared to Tamiya and they have clearly decided to focus on Japan as their core market. They were also one of Hobbico’s major creditors when that US distributorship collapsed into bankruptcy. The list of creditors showed that Hasegawa was owed well over $1 million in unsecured debt and it’s doubtful they recovered much if any of that judging from the pittance the parts of the company sold for. I suspect that had a significant impact on Hasegawa’s ability to invest in new tooling.

A quick Google search suggests Science and Hobby, 1623 2nd Ave, Watervliet, NY 12189 might be decent. The online photos show an interesting selection of kit brands anyway. Further abroad there is Ridgefield Hobby, 508 Broad Ave, Ridgefield, NJ 07657 which appears to have an extensive selection of new and second hand kits.

In 1/12 scale, a kit of the whole aircraft would have a wingspan of 1 metre (3.29 feet) and a length of 0.75 meters (2.46 feet). There are dimensionally larger aircraft models. The Zero in 1/12 would have essentially the same wingspan as the Border Lancaster and be slightly longer.

The Mk IIb has additional panels for gun an ammunition access for the extra outer two .303s on each wing. There are additional cartridge case ejection ports on the wing underside.

The test shot that Radu shows is correct, the model in the Revell promo material is wrong and clearly so. I'm now willing to ascribe that to a poorly constructed test shot versus problems with the parts themselves and I for one at glad to have been proven wrong by the additional image Radu provided. Revell did themselves no favours by publishing images of a test model that looks as incorrect as this one did.

Well, there you go bringing facts into the discussion

Dihedral is the angle between the horizon and a line drawn between the CENTERLINE of the wingtip and the CENTERLINE of the wing root. So, yes, the Hurricane wing does have dihedral.

I certainly will. I have one on order with the Big H.

There are clear view panels in the roof of the gear bay to allow the pilot to verify the gear is up and locked.

Early December

There’s no reason they couldn’t do a 1/48th scale kit first, or even without also doing it in 1/32. They just haven’t so far. I’d argue that demand for 4-engined bombers would be greater in 1/48 than 1/32. The B-24 is not the only aircraft they should consider. The B-29, Halifax, Stirling, and Sunderland would be in greater demand in 1/48 rather than 1/32. A 1/32 B-29 would really be massive.

They really are quite prominent on the real thing

A 1/144 model takes up nearly 3 times the volume of a 1/200 scale model and double the area. So figure it will also need somewhere between 2 and 3 times as much plastic. It’s definitely not a trivial difference in scale.

You could always scale up to 1/24th scale for the car door and bubble top Typhoons …

There aren’t as many (that you would want to build) of either as you might think Fw 190A/F: Revell, Hasegawa (but nothing earlier than an A-4 unless you consider the Pacific Coast kit) Fw 190D: Hasegawa Bf 109E: Eduard, Dragon, maybe Matchbox Bf 109F: Hasegawa is superior to Trumpeter Bf 109G: Hasegawa, Revell, Trumpeter Bf 109K: Hasegawa Yes, I know the quoted post was tongue-in-cheek :)

1st generation Harriers: GR.1 GR.3 AV-8A/C (USMC, Spanish Navy, Thai Navy) SHAR FRS.1 SHAR FA.2 T.2 T.4 TAV-8A

The Trumpeter Seahawk in 1/48 and the HobbyBoss 1/72 effort are both really good kits. I think that the designs were a cooperation with Monochrome, as was the Wyvern. The Trumpeter kit is certainly an improvement over the Classic Airframes kit in 1/48th.

Source? We actually don’t know why KH went out of business. I’ve seen at least one report that the main problem was not being able to ship enough kits to distributors in the early days of the pandemic when shipping anything anywhere was a huge challenge. Maybe they were just totally mismanaged. Lots of great ideas don’t survive a poor business plan.