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Having revisited my scale modelling pastime, I've finally finished something! This figure has been in the box, partially complete for over 20 years and yesterday, I finally got it done ..... well, apart from a coat of matt varnish! I welcome your comments and feedback. Keith

Grumman AF-2 Guardian ‘Fire Bomber’ (SH48225) 1:48 Special Hobby The Grumman AF Guardian was designed from outset to be an anti-submarine warfare aircraft, although the airframe began life as a heavy torpedo bomber, taking numerous forms and using two engines to give it enough power to lift a larger load. The penultimate design included a jet engine in the tail and a Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp radial engine in the nose, but as the jet engine never lived up to its promise, it was dropped and the type reverted to tried and true prop power to lift it from an Essex-class carrier, which was to be its usual home. The size of the airframe and its choice of power plant made it the largest propeller engine aircraft to have flown regularly to and from carriers. There were two sub-types when in US Navy service, the hunter, which had two extra crew to operate the belly-mounted radome and electronic countermeasure equipment, but it had nothing to defend itself with other than the capabilities of the ECM fit and harsh language from the crew. The other sub-type was the killer, carrying two flight crew and an additional radar/searchlight operator, with an array of weaponry in the internal bomb bay. Fewer than 400 were built overall, and it entered service in the early 50s in time to serve in the Korean War, where it garnered a reputation for being a difficult aircraft to fly thanks to its lack of power and heavy controls that led to a high attrition rate due mainly to accidents. There was an attempt to combine both roles in a single Guardian-based airframe, but it was soon cancelled. Despite some improvements in the shape of the AF-3, it was retired from active service in 1955 but remained in reserve until 1957, replaced by the S-2 Tracker, also from the Grumman stable. Remaining airframes were scrapped, with just five receiving a stay of execution to be used as fire bombers in California until their retirement in 1978 after many years of sterling service where their drawbacks weren’t such an issue. The Kit This is a reboxing of a 2014 tooling from Special Hobby that has been upgraded with additional parts to portray its fire-bombing incarnation. It arrives in a blue-themed top-opening box, and inside are seven sprues of grey styrene, a clear sprue, a bag of thirty-six resin grey parts, a large decal sheet, a fret of Photo-Etch (PE) parts, a sheet of pre-cut masking material for one of the decal options, and of course the instruction booklet, which is printed on glossy paper in colour, with profiles of the decal options on the rear pages for when the time comes. Detail is good, and the large size of the aircraft is noticeable when you first open the box. The engine uses up most of the resin parts, and it should result in an excellent rendition of this powerful radial motor that was sadly not sufficient to propel this monster as well as it deserved. Because this is a civilian version of the aircraft, there are several unused parts that are picked out on the sprue diagrams with large red Xs. Be aware that many of the larger parts have large raised ejector turrets on their inner faces, some of which will require removal to avoid fit issues, so it’s an idea to take your nippers to them wholesale before you begin to build. Wear glasses to avoid getting a scratched cornea or worse if one pings in your direction. Construction begins with the instrument panel, which is wide even though there’s only a single pilot sat at the controls. The styrene panel has PE rudder and other pedals attached from behind, or you can simplify the rudders slightly by using plastic supports with just the pedals applied from the PE sheet. Decals are applied to the instrument panel and a resin part is fixed to the starboard side, adding the coaming and another detailed part over the top of it. Three seats are made up, one on a rail with headrest and four-point PE seatbelts added, with two more simple seats that have just lap belts to hold the crew in place. The main cockpit has a narrow space for the pilot and two side consoles that are detailed with three decals, adding two folded PE document pockets to the sides of the starboard console, the seat slots into two holes in the floor, plus the control column in front of it. The rear bulkhead fits to the back of the floor on a pair of rails, joining the two elements together with a palette of equipment. The other two seats are placed on small sections of floor that have bulkheads added into grooves in the front, and are used to locate them against a couple of raised lines inside the fuselage, as is the main cockpit, plus a bulkhead in the nose with a hole in the centre. A small section of the bomb bay is removed for the first decal option, and the bottom half of another raised line is removed from the starboard nose at the base of a depression to ensure a good fit. The tail-wheel bay slips into the tail along with a small bulkhead, and on the sides of the fuselage a couple of windows need adding so the rest of the crew can see out. The engine must be made up next before being inserted into the open front of the nose. The whole assembly is resin apart from the push-rods, which you must make eighteen of from 0.5mm wire that is 5mm long, adding them to the front bank of pistons once they have been inserted into the holes in the central block, taking care to use the correct parts in each bank, and adding the ancillaries to the reduction housing at the front, plus the wiring harness, which you can improve by wiring up all the plugs with some fine wire from your stock. Once it is painted, the rear is inserted into the bulkhead in the nose, and the cowling lip is detailed with two internal parts to make up the intakes before gluing it to the nose around the engine. Resin exhaust stubs are inserted at the base of the depressions in the side of the nose, covering their bases with a separate section of cowling, and adding a resin intake and PE grille to each side along with two more cowling panels over the upper outlets. The canopy is in two parts like the real thing, but without seriously messing about with the parts, I can’t say whether you can depict the canopy opened. If not, the brave amongst us could cut the canopy in half and add a small fillet to give it the requisite width. The enormous elevators are each made from top and bottom halves, sliding the mini-stabilisers into the grooves in the leading edges, and then cutting them off and making good for the first scheme, as they aren’t fitted. The first scheme also has an extended bomb bay that contains additional firefighting water, while the other two options still have the original flush-fitting bay doors that are each a single part. The lower wings have the leading-edge slat bays fitted to the outer panel, then the gear bays are inserted, made from three parts each, completed by lowering the upper wing halves onto them, which have some ribbing detail moulded into them that will be the roof of the bay once installed. There’s a landing light inserted into the starboard wing lower, after which the wings slot into the grooves in the fuselage sides, setting them aside to cure at the correct dihedral. The tail has the arrestor hook inserted through the bulkhead, and two lights above it, one clear the other red, adding another red light just behind the cockpit. Two little T-aerials are glued under the elevators later in the build. With the model inverted, the flaps are detailed with PE hinges, adding an L-shaped pitot on the starboard side. The main gear legs are shown being built up in isolation with their bays hovering in space to make the process clearer, taking the main strut and adding two retraction jacks, a PE scissor-link and the captive bay door to each side. The wheels are each made from two halves and are slotted onto the axles at the bottom of the legs, referring to a scrap diagram that shows the correct angle for the legs and wheels, which are canted slightly outboard. The tail wheel bay is also shown in isolation, adding the twin wheels to the yokes, a V-shaped retraction jack, and two-part bay doors that are captive to the leg. A small resin peg is added to the rear of the strut to finish it off. A pair of wingtip lights are inserted in the gaps in the wing, the prop is made up from the central boss and four separate square-tipped blades, then a forward-raked antenna is placed 15mm back from the rear of the canopy, with a blunt antenna behind it, and another on a short post behind that, adding a pair of whiskers trailing behind with the airflow, again from your own stock – toothbrush bristles are quite good for that. Markings There are three decal options on the sheet, one bright orange and white, the other two aluminium with an orange fuselage band. From the box you can build one of the following: BuNo.123088, ex-US Navy, Rebuilt as a firefighter. In 1962 is flew with civil registration N3142G with code 30E on its cowl, operated by the Aero Union Corporation in Choco, California. NoNo.126792, ex-US Navy, a firefighting aircraft with civil registration N9995Z, operated by the Aero Union Corporation in Choco, California. BuNo. 126759, ex-US Navy, flew with civil registration N3144G, operated by the Aero Union Corporation in Choco, California. During service it flew with several different variations, at one point with an orange engine cowling and 30E on the nose. The decals appear to be printed using the same digital processes as Eduard are now using, and have good registration, sharpness, and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut loosely around the printed areas. I mention Eduard because from 2021, the carrier film on their decals can be coaxed away from the printed part of the decal after they have been applied, effectively rendering them carrier film free, making the completed decals much thinner and more realistic, and obviating the need to apply successive coats of clear varnish to hide the edges of the carrier film. It’s a great step further in realism from my point of view, and saves a good quantity of precious modelling time into the bargain. Conclusion It’s a big, ungainly aircraft with a certain appeal beyond its prodigious size. Sure, it wasn’t very good at its job in the military, but it made a great fire truck, and this model depicts that well, with plenty of detail and a gorgeous resin engine. The decals are very colourful too. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Luftschutz Helmets x 2 (P35004) 1:35 Special Hobby 3D Print During WWII, firefighters and rescue workers often laboured while the bombs were still falling in order to save people and buildings from total destruction, or at least to minimise the ravaging fires and reduce the effects on collapsing buildings. Many of these brave folks were volunteers that were either over fighting age or had been invalided out for one reason or another. Nazi Germany too had these people braving death and destruction, and many of them wore a helmet to protect their heads called the Luftschutz. It bore a passing resemblance to the military Stahlhelm, but had extended brims front and rear, with cut-outs over the ears to reduce any effect on hearing that the brims would otherwise have. They were often painted a dark blue and had a winged Swastika on the front, and a leather interior structure to protect the wearer’s head from abrasion and impacts. A leather strap held the helmet on the wearer’s head with a friction buckle keeping it on their head during activity. This set is another direct 3D printed offering from Special Hobby, printed in their pale orange resin using SLA printers for ultimate detail. Inside the standard blister pack are two helmet parts, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE) and a decal sheet for use once the model is painted. The helmets have already been removed from their printing base, with just a single support mark on the flat top that can be sanded off with little effort. The four rivets are present, as are the small perforated ventilation holes on the sides, although you can only just see them because they are small at full-scale, so reduce that by 35 times, and they are utterly minute. Thick paint may obliterate them completely, so take it easy when applying it. The instructions show the location of the straps, which are in two parts like the real thing, and also shows the location of the decals for Luftschutz use as well as other times they were seen during the Prague and Warsaw uprisings. If you’re wondering which is the front, look at it from the side and you will see the brim at the front is shorter than at the rear, in much the same way as a modern firefighter’s helmet. No-one wants hot debris down the back of their jackets, especially when their mind is on other more dangerous things. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of