Zulu Lima

I don't need luck. Like I said, I'm waiting. I don't understand the obsession with running out to buy the latest Airfix releases sight unseen when there are thousands of other kits available. Patience and research pay dividends. The full picture won't be known for months anyway, since the equation includes available aftermarket, which all Airfix kits require to achieve a top quality model. It could very well be that Airfix + Eduard is the winner, but I'm not optimistic. Shame about the RS offering if true as I'd at least like a choice.

I'll happily pay an extra fiver to avoid Airfix's "quality" in favor of a more adult "challenge". At the very least, I'm waiting to see both kits built and reviewed. No one in their right mind should trust Airfix.

I seriously doubt MF would invest all of those development resources just to make a single variant. The M is likely just the first to hit the market. I'm holding out for a B/C. Impressive little bird for sure, but the F-105 was hefting 14,000 plus a 6 barrel Gatling cannon. The F-15E will do a cool 23,000+cannon. 😲 The B-17 wasn't actually that impressive, being a mid-30s design. It was relegated to medium bomber status before the war ended, thanks to the B-29 which could lift 2 empty A-4 Skyhawks worth of payload! 😁

I love the new details, canopy, and decals. I'll be all over this if they release one in standard USN colors. By the way, you've made the same mistake I have by coining the term "colour density". We already have a word for that: saturation.

Did you manage to find an old-stock Roland? I know Eduard announced a re-release in limited numbers but I didn't think they had hit retailers yet. I'm patiently waiting to snap one up; now if they would only do the same for the SSW D.III...

I agree that the rivets are just wrong; it makes the fuselage look... quilted is probably the best description. The one thing that looks quite bad though, is the tail fold. Check 4:34 in the video. If you had told me that was a 1:72 Italeri kit I would have said "not their best work". On the plus side those exhausts look properly thin. I'd like to see what the dipping sonar looks like deployed, if an option, as that would be a cool feature to display somehow.

That Nakajima E8N1 "Dave", which is a fantastic plane/model by the way, is a new detail-up set that includes the Hasegawa aftermarket PE set with the crucial flying-wires!

Ship's Camel, finally! Tondern Raid anyone?

From the April distributors' leaflet: "In April we will release five new kits as new items and one more that was released earlier and not available for some time. We can expect the biggest hit among them to be the premiere release of the Rufe kit in the 1/48 Limited Edition. As is customary with premiere kits released in this series, it is packaged in Dual Combo mode with two complete sets of moldings for two models of the Japanese A6M2-N Rufe floatplane fighter. The decals will offer the opportunity to build two of the eight Imperial Japanese Navy machines from the 1942 to 1944 battles of the Aleutians, Guadalcanal, Indonesia and Chichi- -jima. Although this floatplane was based on design of the A6M2 Zero carrier fighter, and many customers will probably expect it to be just another boxed version of the Zero, this is not the case. While the kit is also structurally based on the Zero, there is an entirely new set of moulds made for it, and the Rufe shares with the other Zero kits sprues for small parts and clear parts only." There are 2 more markings not shown.