Masinissa

The issues are that the 1/48 Tamiya F4F-4/FM-1 continues the round curve on the cockpit sides so it's like a barrel and Tamiya put a floor in their cockpit. It's subtle, but you can see the flat sides at the wingroot on the the real airframe, Eduard and Hobby Boss got this right, but the sides of the fuselage at the cockpit become vertically flat. The issue with the Hobby Boss Wildcats, like their 1/32 Trumpeter brethren, is that the Wing sits too low on an otherwise dimensionally correct fuselage. If you have a Tamiya kit and and Eduard or Hobby Boss you'll find that the Eduard and Hobby Boss cowls are too small to fit on the Tamiya kit. Since the old KMC F4F-3 conversion set's cowl is also too small for the Tamiya kit, the conclusion can be made that Tamiya made an error there as well. Unfortunately for Tamiya, the sales of their 1/48 FM-1 will suffer in Europe and North America. Eduard only sell about 3% of their products in Japan. Tamiya should have released this kit 15 years ago and I would have bought at least two along with aftermarket cockpit corrections!

Classic Airframes original release had markings for Japanese BR.20s that were used in the terror bombings in China and in 2024 Special Hobby will release their version. What would be really nice is if they would replace the very old tool resin engines and parts with one piece 3D printed engines and other printed bits. It would cut the build time down and you wouldn't have to deal with all the toxic resin dust from cutting and sanding resin parts. Worst part of the build!

I hope they don't release this as a dual combo. The new way of releasing a new tool with plastic for one kit, but 8 to 10 marking options would suit me since I do have a few Hasegawa P-40Es. The P-40K/F/L are most welcome. Then it's a long wait until we get the P-40B/C/CU . . . and all the unique variations on those.

Look closely the fuselage has the dorsal and ventral seam. They're going to be selling this in Asia, mostly. Eduard, Airfix, and Wingsy aren't as available or dominant in the Asian market. So it makes sense for DML to kit this. I'll have a good look later to see if there's any major glitches. If not, I'll pick one up and build the Galland Bf-109E.

There's cash to be made from cows, but not from mules . . .

Pre Cut masks? That's a nice addition from Hobby Boss.

They've done the FM-2. The FM-1 is essentially an F4F-4 with a two gun folding wing. If you really really really want to do and Eduard FM-1 you can steal the wings from the FM-2 (?), or wait for Eduard to drink Tamiya's milkshake.

Hard pass. I'll buy another 1/48 P-38 J though. The fuselage of Tamiya's 1/48 F4F-4 is too round and tubby especially in the wing root area. The Hobby Boos 1/49 F4F family's wing sits to low. I'll wait for the Czech company to do one.

Sorry, but the rear fuselage looks to be stuffed with Oreos . Pass on this.

Send in your request to QuicKboost. They make money off aftermarket parts and corrections, and here's a set that would be perfect for their line. 👉 [email protected]

Where did they get the schematics for the interior details?

It seems this is their new approach to Limited Edition kits. The newly released 8th Air Force P-51D has 10 decal options, plastic, resin, masks photoetch for one kit. The FM-2, due in August is the same. Cuts the price down to an MSRP of about $50. If you want to build another kit then the Overtrees are available. I don't mind this because I may only have time to build one kit.

New shots of the forth coming 1/48 Bf-109K on Instagram. The kit will be released in September. I'm interested to see how different the new tool Bf-109K is from the Bf-109F/G family. The box will have one set of sprues, photoetch, masks for one model, but decals and stencils for two kits. https://www.instagram.com/p/CuUiowStFys/

I wonder if the Wilder Cat FM-2 is a Dual Combo? Can't tell from the artwork.

I can wait. I'll most likely get this from Exito. They have free shipping with orders of $150 or more. They just started this program. Load this and the Eduard FM-2 and then . . . .