Marcel Drgon

I searched for reference for the ZD408 shark mouth and found this picture. Does that mean that Model Alliance has their shark mouth decal shape wrong?

Petr Muzikant sold the first three boxing options on Plastikova Zima in Bratislava today and I must admit it's a winner. I detached the main parts from the sprues already and they fit pretty well. Cmeliak was crude, but this one is on par or above with his Bf-109s. Old Kovozavody's one was my first ever kit finished with paint like 40 years ago, so this one brings out sweet memories.

Received the cats in my shop here in Bratislava today, price is 76,30 € incl 20% Slovak VAT. The kit is stunning.

Many thanks, one picture says more than thousand words! I have choosen the 32 - F12 from late 1968 from the Moose Rep. decal sheet. Any chance to find out whether it had the IRST pod?

Nice Lansen! I have few questions: is it the IRST pod underneath the port wing? Are there any pictures of it or is there information available, which A/C may have been equipped with it? Is it the same pod as used by J 35F2 and J Drakens?

Lovely subject, good work. I started mine on Sunday. It seems to me that running gears are MiniArt's Achilles heel by default. Too complicated, tricky to assembly and sometimes with serious construction bugs. It appears to me that you had to play with the wheel axles too (part F5), mine have been kind of 2-3mm short, am I right? If you do not do that the axles can not be fixed to the suspension arms as per the kit building instructions. I further noticed that the kit does not give us the manlet cover fixture strips and the back plate fuel drum fixtures (and perhaps the rubber ended backs of the fenders), which have been features of late T-44Ms. Especially if three of the camouflage schemes from the kit decals clearly sported these features. However, all these are easily to be added from scratch.

Well, the kit is a mixed bag. Nicely moulded, falls together rather good, but isn't a very well mastered copy of the original. First - the turret shape - its frontal arc curves - resembles more the A/M1, but the M4 is based on Czechoslovak licence bulit 72/72M turrets. Seems to be a similar mistake Tamiya made more than 20 years ago. A lot of the error stays hidden behind the ERA boxes, but it is still quite noticeable. If you want to see the proper turret shape w/o the ERA blocks, visit this link to SBS model replacement turret: https://78462f86-a-1ae83386-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/sbsmodel.com/www/resinsets/T72-M-early-03.jpg?attachauth=ANoY7cpRzUrw1Jd_TxVVdT38o0AnjqYhoCLxfVWqaom8tj11cpKzwW-i0yRtI_nZ0qbsedIn9jfE7v-LQ-GqcDF1amPKSW4uUdIjFon4NJav4EAasITZDo5KLN_g_rcLsPsWqwa6Rbqj96AZo-OaFfgrFywirGrfSLiFnDA5ax1dppOHcAEf4PStjTCpv8tlFOke-2cwWObH1ESp7t3a4R0xn4waiOf3BQ%3D%3D&attredirects=0 Furter problem is that the lower hull does not reflect many of the M4 changes - for example the new wheel arm bump stops (damped and on each station instead of solid and only 1, 2 and 6) and the new arrangement of inspection and draining holes of the Perkins powerpack. However, unless you leave the skirts off (which happens quite often in service), you do not need to bother. The rest of problems is rather small as the T-72/90 kits from Trumpeter are of their finer pieces. Here and there little discrepancies one can live with. I give Trumpeter 7/10 for accuracy, 9/10 for buildabilty and 10/10 for making this happen at all.

Unfortunately, this is not the two seataer, but the complete night fighter already, albeit without decals. The difference is the rear cockpit. Look at the old but still the only-game-in-town MPM Tamiya conversion instructions to see what I mean. http://www.cmkkits.com/en/detail-sets-accessories/me-262b-1a-b1a-u1/ . I hoped so much they get it right :-( .

If GSI C range is in question, then C004 yellow + C034 sky blue in 1:4 ratio comes pretty close to the stuff on Eduards PE set. AV Vallejo also produces color called Emerald green (70838), which is quite close as well. Indeed, the colour varied, but what is on the PE set is quite close to chips of original Russian colour. Actually, mixing any ordinary blue and yellow will make it; mixing colurs is not a difficult matter if you have chip or specimen, in this case the PE set. Just count drops of basic colours and steer these well under good lighting coditions, and you have it sooner than you think.