thierry laurent

Hi folks. Aires just announced the release of various small resin sets for that old lady. The ones I saw will noticeably improve the venturi probe, oil radiator and cockpit seats. Franky, I did not see that coming after so many years. Happy to see they can still consider aftermarket for old kits. T.

Hi Iain. On my side I'm seriously wondering if purchasing the ICM kit as a 3D reference is not the easiest approach to assess how to correct that mess...

Try using a new sheet of plastic as it is far more souple. Put the strip in hot water for five minutes, roll it and use tape to secure it while it is cooling.

To detail pits, bays and wells, I'm generally using copper wire AND lead wire as both have different qualities. For cables or hoses running against a wall, lead is easier to work with as it is more souple. This has no drawback when glued on something. When the hoses or cables must 'stay in the air' you need more rigidity. In that case I'm using copper or aluminium. They are more difficult to shape but stay where you glue them without the risk to deform them if you accidentally touch them later.

Nice project! By the way Ben, you have to know the OA-4M pit instruments were noticeably different in comparison with the TA-4J (and there were also two different configs corresponding to production batches). Fortunately, I guess most people will not see the differences as this is probably the Skyhawk for which the available documentation is the worst. What is nonetheless more visible is the various small boxes added on the front IP coamings and windscreen. Many years ago I found two or three (bad) pictures. I think that was in Japanese books. However the best reference is the NATOPS. This shows such additional boxes. I have it somewhere but need to dig seriously to find it. Cheers. Thierry

So do I. It is about time we get a good second gen 109.

By the way a Chinese company named Galaxy released a specific small decal set of instrument faces for the Border Me109. They also released a canopy and wheels mask set for the same kit. So aftermarket is slowly coming...

I'm sure a late war kamikaze one will follow...

Hungary also used the Friedrich (if the only thing you want to avoid is the swastika marking).

I believe we are missing the point if we think the demand is driving the offer. This was the case decades ago but now the effect is double-sided for many products. Otherwise, how could we explain the success of kits of planes that 'do not sell' such as WnW ones? I'm sure that if someone would release Cold War topics with a similar quality control and marketing strategy, they would sell. I have zero doubt about that. It is a fact most existing Cold War large scale kits are so-so: rather expensive, questionable accuracy, weird choices of schemes, challenging assembly, blunt instructions, uninspiring box cover, lack of good marketing, etc. To me, the main reason they were purchased was mainly a lack of competition.

If I were you I would do it for the most available kit type. This means Trumpeter for a B or D. For the A, this is questionable.

This may help: https://www.reddit.com/r/modelmakers/comments/o3m5uq/mlib_finally_got_some_more_work_done_to_my_124/

Possibly but how can we explain this is exactly what they did with their 109 kit...?!?

Hi guys, At least two years ago KP announced a 1/32 plastic L-29 but I did not see anywhere any news regarding such a release...?!? Does anyone know anything about it ? Thanks Thierry

I have yet to understand why HK chose that version and only released that one whereas other versions of that plane saw action during WW2, the Korean War, Middle East War and so on ... Weird to me!