Search the Community

Hi all! I've recently sold a few model kits I wasn't going to build so I though I'd reinvest in a kit I've had my eye on for a while now. Picked up Meng's F-4E and the Isracast conversion set to build a Kurnass, as well as the Isradecal Kurnass set and some Quinta Studios 3D cockpit decals. I also have Hasegawa's US aircraft weaponry set which includes early GBUs and targeting pods. This is my first look at a Meng kit and just looking over the sprues it looks absolutely brilliant! I've heard good things about this kit and I've never had an issue with Quinta or Isradecal parts in the past so I'm very much looking forward to this build. I'm going to take things slow and hopefully do this kit justice. As far as the scheme is concerned I have a few potential options. I own the Double Ugly IDF Phantom books so have a great source of reference images. My options are: -201 Squadron Kurnass 2000 with 4 x GBU-12s and a Pave Spike targeting pod. -119 Squadron Kurnass with 2 x AGM-62 Walleye guided bombs and datalink pod. -119 Squadron Kurnass with 4 x GBU-10 guided bombs and a Pave Spike targeting pod. Source: Double Ugly Israeli Phantoms I'm still undecided, the Kurnass 2000 would require extra work as I'd have to scratch build a few small parts but the heavily worn underside looks like a great challenge to replicate. Thanks for looking in- looking forward to this!

Dune – Paul Atreides Deluxe Edition (AFS-002s) 1:12 MENG via Creative Models Ltd Dune began life in the 1960s as the first book in a long-running series by Frank Herbert, and several attempts have been made to realise the initial book in movie form, with varying levels of success. David Lynch made a decent, if simplified attempt at it in the 1980s, although it was a flawed movie with irritating voice-overs (from my point of view, at least), while a three-part TV movie in 2000 was considered a reasonable adaptation, but I haven’t seen that one. This latest expedition into the deserts of Arrakis benefits from the availability of realistic Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) that can be used to enhance the scope and scale of the saga as it deserves, without it looking false, for the most part. It also benefitted from a massive budget and an acclaimed director, not to mention a cast of many famous actors, although David Lynch’s version also had some famous faces, including a young Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck before his Star Trek days. The new film has been split into two episodes to portray as much of the book’s content as possible in an effort to retain as much of the important plot subtleties of the original story as possible, and part 2 has been out now for several months, rounding off the original story, allegedly, with the possibility of more to come if it has made enough money for the studio, which I expect it has by now. I still haven’t seen the second part yet, so no spoilers please! I really must resolve that soon. Paul Atreides is the hero of the piece, and he’s played by a young gentleman by the name of Timothée Chalamet, his first name apparently pronounced the same way as a famous shampoo in the UK, but he prefers the less pretentious Anglicised version. He starts the film as a callow youth, but after the demise of his father at the hands of Doc Yueh/Baron Harkonnen (take your pick, really), he is spirited away from certain death by his mother where he meets up with the local Fremen, and soon is adopted as their leader, where he gets the name Muad'Dib, which is Arakeen for a desert mouse, and the name of one of their moons, which has a mouse-like shape on its face. The Kit This is a new tooling from MENG, and part of the second wave of kits that many people have been waiting for. The initial box-scale kits, whilst well-detailed, were a little on the small size for some of us. This figure kit arrives in a comparatively large satin-finished black-themed box with a painting of Mr Chalamet on the front, looking off into the distance as heroes are wont to do, while his cape flutters in the breeze, although his hair doesn’t. The box is oriented in portrait form thanks to the artwork, and is of a similar size to those of the Ornithopters we’ve reviewed recently. Inside are thirteen sprues in various colours and sizes, two separate face inserts for masked and unmasked options, a four-part stand, and in the Deluxe Edition there is a cloth cape in dark brown material that has been pre-sewn to shape so that all you need to do is slip it over the figure’s shoulders. Detail is excellent as we expect from MENG, and if you are familiar with the Bandai Star Wars figures, the method of construction should be familiar, but if you aren’t, it goes together like an action-figure, with movable joints that mimic the range of motion of a human body. The kit is also push-fit, so you don’t have to use glue unless you want to, or feel it will hold up to more posing (Read: playing) over time. The kit is available in two versions, one without a cape that is coded AFS-002, and the Deluxe Edition with a cloth cape that is coded AFS-002s, with a price differential between them. The work involved in the cape is intricate, including sewing and patterning of the cloth, in addition to the distressing of the material, especially at the lower edges where it is extensively frayed. It’s well worth the extra, as it adds more drama and realism to the model. Construction begins with the head, which offers a choice of two faces, one with a dished lower to accommodate the mask of his Stillsuit when it is pulled up to conserve moisture in the desert, and also shows his eyes with the distinctive blue tint acquired from spending a long time in the deserts of Arrakis. Both face parts have the eyebrows and eyes pre-painted for your ease, to assist you with creating a realistic impression of the actor without too much effort. Strangely, our example was missing one eyebrow on the unmasked option, but it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate with a fine brush or Sharpie. You don’t have to choose one face or the other, as there are sufficient parts to create two full heads, so you can swap and change at will, simply by popping one off and replacing it with the other. The face is mated to the back of the head, which is also moulded in a flesh tone, then the hair is made up from three sections, one part to each side, and another at the back. The masked head has its four-part assembly added into the recess at this stage, while the unmasked option is added around his neck later. The upper torso is made first, with internal structure that holds the various sockets later, and a dog-bone pivot that joins the upper and lower torso, closing the front ‘cod-piece’ after adding the two main pivots for the hips. The torso is topped with a flesh-coloured neck that has ball-pivots at both ends to give the head full mobility. The legs have internal sockets hidden inside the Stillsuit outer surface, with extra panels inserted into recesses on the thighs, adding a knee with joints at the top and bottom, which connects the upper leg to the lower, with another socket that takes the ankle-joint to give the four-part foot a range of mobility, all of which snaps into place with a dull click. The arms are made using a similar process on a smaller scale, adding armour inserts on the shoulders and upper arm in a contrasting styrene. The figure is put together, clicking each limb into position, including the head, with a four-part mask to be used with the unmasked face, which is slipped over the neck before clicking the head into position. Several hand options and props are included on the sprues, including a Crysknife in whitish styrene, a Sand Compactor or thumper that attracts worms, FremKit, Paracompass and Maula Pistol. Different hand positions are included for each of the hand-held extras, using separate thumbs or fingers to allow them to grip the prop convincingly, and these can be swapped and changed thanks to the click-fit nature of assembly. An asymmetrical backpack is also provided, consisting of a prism-shaped toolkit, cylindrical bedroll, main pack and a small covered top section, all stacked on top of each other, and applied to the figure’s back with or without the cape, if your boxing has it. A shoulder strap is provided to give the backpack a realistic reason for staying put, which is made from three parts, and either wrapped around the figure’s shoulder, or threaded through the cape if fitted, using the last diagram as a guide. A vignette stand is included in the box, forming a triangular segment of a rocky part of the desert, which Paul can be placed upon looking wistfully into the far distance with a heroic 1,000 yard stare. The lower base is moulded in black, with a sand-coloured insert slotted over the top, which should simplify painting, inserting an Atreides shield in the flattened front of the raised area. There is also a small slide-out drawer in the opposite side for you to keep the accessories such as hands, weapons etc., while they are not in use. A very thoughtful inclusion. Markings Other than the shield on the base, there aren’t any paint call-outs given, as the kit is intended to be built without it. There’s nothing to stop you breaking out the paints though, adding extra realism to the figure however, and you could also freeze his position and hide the joints with some putty and a little sculpting if you are so minded. For most of us however, it will be a quick build. Conclusion Detail, texture and a likeness to the actor that played Paul Atreides is excellent thanks to LIDAR scanning, and using the same 1:12 scale as Bandai’s Star Wars kits was a sensible idea to provide enough detail without taking up too much space in the cabinet. It’s well-worth the extra for the cape IMHO, but it’s your choice of course. Highly recommended. Standard Boxing without Cape (AFS-002) Deluxe Boxing with Cape (AFS-002s) Review sample courtesy of

Another kit finished, this time 1:72 FIAT G.91R/3, no. 5448, 301 Squadron "Jaguares", Portuguese Air Force, Montijo AB, 1986. Meng kit with some scratch parts, Eduard Zoom PE set (for Revell kit) and Xtradecal decals. Model is tiny, so it was a quick project. Thanks for watching!

Hello everyone, 1/48 F/A-18F VFA-41 BLACK ACES. Superb kit from Meng The engineering in this kit is spectacular, one of the best fighter jets I've built. Thanks, Fernando L. Monkey Hobbies

Dune - Harkonnen Ornithopter (DS-009) 1:72 MENG via Creative Models Ltd Dune began life in the 1960s as the first book in a long-running series by Frank Herbert, and several attempts have been made to realise the initial book in movie form, with varying levels of success. David Lynch made a decent, if simplified attempt at it in the 1980s, although it was a flawed movie with irritating voice-overs (from my point of view, at least), while a three-part TV movie in 2000 was considered a reasonable adaptation, but I haven’t seen that one. This latest expedition into the deserts of Arrakis benefits from the availability of realistic Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) that can be used to enhance the scope and scale of the saga as it deserves, without looking false, for the most part. It also benefitted from a massive budget and acclaimed director, not to mention a cast of many famous actors, although David Lynch’s version also had some famous faces, including a young Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck before his Star Trek days. The new film has been split into two episodes to portray as much of the book’s content as possible in an effort to retain as much of the important plot subtleties of the original story as possible, and part 2 has been out now for several months, rounding off the original story, allegedly, with the possibility of more to come if it has made enough money for the studio, which I expect it has by now. I still haven’t seen the second part yet, so no spoilers please! The new film of course has some great new ships, which includes a less toy-like Ornithopter that is more insectoid and less clockwork bubble-bug than the 1984 edition. They are quadruped aircraft with six or eight helicopter blade-like ‘wings’ providing the lift in a dragonfly-like manner, and a pointed nose that incorporates expansive windscreens that probably don’t give as good a field of view forward as you’d think. The Kit This is a new kit that follows on the heels of the ‘vehicle scale’ mini-kits that now look more like stocking-fillers as this new tooling is in 1:72, corresponding with the dominant scale in which the Bandai Star Wars kits were released in, giving modellers the opportunity to compare their sizes, and display them together without any disparity in scale. The kit arrives in a standard MENG box with a painting of the ‘thopter on the front in desert tones, and a satin finish to the box, as usual. There are nine sprues of olive-green styrene plus a slide-moulded cockpit framing in the same colour, two sprues in sand for the base, two poly-caps in black, a small black sprue containing crew figures, a small decal sheet with two Harkonnen logos on it, and the instruction booklet printed in colour on glossy paper. Detail is excellent, and the inclusion of four crew figures in contrasting colours indicates that the designers kept a watching eye on the novice modeller that may not either want to, or be able to paint the model, whilst providing sufficient detail for the hardened Sci-Fi modeller. This kit is different from the Atreides kit in the same scale that we reviewed recently, having a more muscular, curved body, and only six blades for the wings, plus more aggressive cannons under the nose. It shares the same stand as the Atreides kit, and the landing gear legs are also replicated between the two kits. Construction begins with the cockpit and rear interior, with two step between the flat areas, the lower section for the pilot that controls the aircraft with twin sticks inserted into the deck along with a pair of rudder pedals that have an instrument binnacle installed between them, rising up near the pilot’s eyeline. Four identical crew seats are fitted with bases, building the pilot from two parts so his arms can reach out to the sticks, and three other passengers with their hands on laps, essentially in the same pose and garb, even down to their bald heads. Paint the uniforms a black or dark grey, and the visible human aspects any shade you like. The seats and pegged-in crew are inserted into holes in the cockpit floor, the pilot at the front, a row of two passengers behind him, and another row of two seats, one of which is empty, behind them on the central portion of the floor. Attention shifts to the attachment points for the six blades that sprout from both sides of the fuselage, and the first assembly creates a pair of sockets that pivot in unison with the corresponding socket on the opposite side, thanks to intermeshing quadrant gears that are moulded into the rear of each socket, requiring them to be carefully placed in the correct socket before gluing the two retaining surrounds together. Two more pairs are made, linking two together before they are trapped between the fuselage halves in the next step, with another sited behind, fitting the cockpit, a pivoting access ramp on the underside, and an insert under the aft slope of the fuselage before joining the two halves together, then adding a curved top cover to the blade area. The entire upper nose and framing for the cockpit is moulded as one part using sliding moulds, clipping four clear panes into the roof, one on each side, and another two in the nose. The clear parts have lugs on the sides that allow them to clip into position without glue, and while they may show a little through the edges of the windows, they are much tidier than the risk of glue squirting out of the sides, but if you prefer, you could always cut replacement acetate panels from your own stocks, using the clear parts as a template. The completed assembly is slotted into the fuselage horizontally, locating on three pegs that slide into corresponding holes in the fuselage halves. Another insert is placed under the nose with two poly-caps trapped in place, adding detail inserts around the sides and transition areas of the underside that include fixed barrels that are made from two halves each. The poly-cap turrets are populated by building a pair of twin weapons (or searchlights - it's a while since I watched the first film) on a central rod, which clips into a holder with another part that covers the innards, which slots into the hole under the nose, held in place by the poly-cap, making another assembly that is more obviously a double-barrelled weapon from five parts, mounting it on the second turret, and routing two three-part trunks around the edges of the underside symmetrically. Four directional exhausts are built in pairs, two under the root of the tail, the others on the sides at the root, each assembly made from three parts each. Two towel-rail assemblies are fitted into troughs under the boom, making the fish-like bifurcated tail sections from five parts that remain linked by pins through holes, and have a ‘stinger’ made from four parts that is inserted in another trough above the tail boom. Three tapering surrounds to the blade sockets were fitted into the hull sides without glue earlier, totalling six, and you can choose whether to fold the blades or deploy them as you like, installing the base of the blade on the main part without glue, ensuring that the flat recess on the peg is facing upward when you insert them into the sockets with a click, three per side. To deploy them, the blade is pivoted out straight, and then rotated 90° so that the moulded-in pivot pin ends are at the top. This will prevent them sagging in the cabinet, although the model will also take up a lot of room, as each blade measures over 28cm from the pivot-point. The craft’s landing skids can be posed up or down, pivoting around a central island fairing, which comprises seven different parts depending on your choice. The gear legs are built from a varying number of parts, each sub-assembly receiving a letter code to assist with placement later, and each of the four main legs ending in a pad, except for two seemingly vestigial legs at the rear. They are plugged into the upper assembly according to the last sub-step of each option, and this in turn is mated with the underside of the craft, posing the lower hatch in the open position with the gear down if you wish. The stand is moulded in a desert sand colour, and consists of a two-part support, with a pivot at the top that can be manipulated to various angles, and the base, which is a single gently undulating part that has a uniform sandy texture on its surface, and a circular dais where the support plugs into a large rectangular peg. Markings There are profiles printed at the rear of the instructions, with colours in MENG codes and Gunze Sangyo’s Acrysion range. The main colour is sand yellow, with the two Harkonnen decals applied one per side. The decals are both black, so there’s no registration, but sharpness and colour density are sufficient to do the job. Conclusion I’ve been waiting for larger kits of the Ornithopter, and MENG have now granted that wish, so I’m very happy. There is good detail included on a kit that is a relatively simple build, and offers plenty of scope for the modeller to practice their paint and weathering effects on the kit when it is ready. The two 1:72 kits are sufficiently different to warrant getting them both, so you may want to warn your wallet. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Mclaren MP4/4 1988 (CS-007) 1:24 MENG via Creative Models Ltd McLaren are named after their founder, Bruce McLaren, who began the team in 1963 competing in Formula One, with their first Grand Prix win in 1968 during a four year period where they dominated F1. Bruce McLaren was killed during testing in 1970, but the team continued to do well under new management, merging with Ron Dennis’s team in 1981, under whose management they have gone from strength-to-strength, expanding their range into production cars in more recent years. During the 1988 season drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost dominated almost every race of the season, achieving a 1-2 in the Detroit Grand Prix, Prost coming in 38 seconds behind Senna, powered by turbocharged Honda engines that were outputting immense levels of power, part of the reason for the change to normally aspirated engines by the governing body the FIA for the 1989 season. The MP4/4 was arguably one of the most successful overall designs in Formula 1, using a V6 Honda engine that displaced only 1.5 litres, but output 675hp at 12,000rpm thanks to a substantial boost from the turbocharger while they still had access to its benefits, deleting the turbo intakes briefly due to aerodynamic concerns, which proved to be a mistake that was rapidly corrected. The car ran almost unchanged for much of the season, with a reclined driver position keeping the centre of gravity low, allowing it to corner at high speeds, and with the reliability of its engine, its retirement was limited to only four races of the season, and it achieved a great deal of success and many podium positions. Their worst placing other than retirement was 6th at Portugal, although both Senna and Prost had Nigel Mansell in his Judd snapping at their heels, which perhaps spurred them on to greater things. Senna placed 10th in Italy after retiring from pole in a collision with another driver he was lapping, who unexpectedly regained control after locking his wheels in a corner. In preparation for the 1989 season, an altered MP4/4 chassis was fitted with a 3.5L V10 normally aspirated engine for testing to ensure they were ready for the following season in conjunction with the new chassis that was under development. The Kit This is a new tooling from MENG in my preferred vehicle scale, and it’s also from an era when I regularly watched F1 before I took on an old house that needed total renovation, and my free time evaporated. The kit arrives in one of MENG’s typical satin-finished top-opening boxes, with a painting of the car on the front, against a stylised backdrop. Inside the box are four sprues and a bodyshell part in light grey styrene, a clear sprue, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE), four flexible black tyres, two sheets of self-adhesive chrome stickers, a sheet of pre-cut woven material in black, three sheets of decals, and the instruction booklet, which has a painting guide in colour, sprue diagrams and a paint chart with MENG AK and Acrysion codes, plus the names of the colours in four languages including English. Detail is excellent as expected, and the inclusion of the afore mentioned extras creates a model that can be built by most of us without the need for aftermarket. The PE is trapped between two sheets of adhesive film, as it has been etched with no equivalent to sprue-gates, so once the sheets are removed the parts will be loose, as I found out when I forgot about their way of doing things. Construction begins with the Honda V6 engine, the block of which is made from seven parts, with a Honda logo decal applied in the centre of each bank of piston heads. The air intake trunks in between the banks and the fuel injectors are installed on pegs in the centre of the block, fitting additional pipework to the ends, the first-motion shaft on the rear, and a pair of exhaust manifolds on the sides. The transmission is built from two long halves that project from the rear of the engine, adding a pair of braces for the bodywork panels, and inserting two driveshafts on the sides, then applying decals to the backs of the body panels before plugging them into the sides of the transmission. Two pairs of wishbones are fixed to the top and bottom of the transmission assembly, adding more linkages and a turbo intercooler radiator over the top, then creating the rear wheel hubs from a two-part brake disc and callipers that give it the prototypical venting between the two layers of braking surface. The discs are attached to the front of their bearings with a poly-cap allowing easy removal of the wheels at any point, gluing each one to the wishbones on pegs, and mating the engine and transmission together into one. The monocoque chassis of the vehicle was laid-up from carbon fibre, which was still relatively new at the time, here depicted by the main shell with two lower sections and a front bulkhead that are spot painted, using white for a small section that is seen through the outer bodywork panels, fitting bulkheads at the rear of the side pods, then attacking it with carbon-fibre decals that are found on the large sheet. A similar process is carried out in the cockpit, which starts as a single curved tub that has decals applied all around the seat, fitting some small ancillary controls into position after decaling, moving on to create the lap belts from the black fabric sheet, threading the PE buckles through according to the diagrams, and adding a circular quick-release to one of them. The shoulder belts are each two fabric parts that wrap around a U-shaped assembly at the top, with PE adjustment buckles linking the two sections of each belt together, finishing them with more PE buckles. The completed assembly is fitted in the cockpit on the rear lip, and a pair of Boss advertisements are applied from the decal sheet in a prominent part of the upper belt where it went over Ayrton or Alain’s shoulders. A logo decal is applied to the belt holder on the lip, subtly letting everyone know which chassis and variant it is. The cockpit is mated with the shell from below, applying another small decal to the shell behind one of the cut-outs in the nose, fitting the dash into position at the front of the cockpit, using decals for the instruments, and painting the many buttons appropriate colours according to the key nearby. The relatively simple steering wheel with two red and green buttons is attached to the dash via a short column, showing just how much steering wheel technology has come on, the modern wheels costing hundreds of thousands to make, as they contain complex computers, and are covered in buttons and often have a screen built-in. A control box is decaled with another Honda logo and fixed onto each side pod, making up two radiator assemblies per side with their own feeder hoses and supports, installing them on the angled rear sides of the pods after detail painting them. Air-intakes are made from two handed parts each, fitting a cylindrical assembly to the rear, and installing them across the face of the rearmost radiator, making sure that anything needing painting is done before you start applying glue. The undertray, or lower surface of the body is almost flat at the front, with splitters near the rear that guide the airflow out from under the car, creating downforce that sucks the car onto the track, with a lot of help from the upper aerodynamic fixtures. The inside is decaled with carbon-fibre and reflective stickers, applying paint to the other areas, then doing the same to the underside, painting crucial parts of the undersides a wood colour, which are the FIA’s guide to whether the vehicle is obeying the regulations regarding its height from the ground. Additional decals are applied to the sides of the splitters at the rear, and a set of wishbones are glued into the nose, adding three pedals and a small tank in the driver’s foot well. Another set of wishbones are attached to the top of the monocoque’s nose, bracing them with additional damping rods before bringing the two assemblies together, and applying another two decals to the sides of the nose once the glue is set. The front discs and hubs are made in the same manner as the rears, and are glued to the wishbones in the same way as at the rear, with a steering linkage applied to the front bulkhead, wrapped in a protective shroud, which has three small reservoirs applied beneath it. The sloped rear behind the driver has two assemblies fitted on pegs, followed by the roll-over hoop, building up the remaining hoses and ‘conch’ shaped turbo housings to link them and the engine to their outlets in the underside between the splitter plates, which allows the engine assembly to be fitted, assuming everything is painted and decaled at this stage. Two engine mounting brackets link the monocoque to the motor, and a large cylindrical reservoir with filler cap is fixed to a peg at the front of the transmission. The plenum chamber that is sited over the air intake trunks between the piston banks is made from three sections, with an FIA logo decal applied to the cylindrical assembly at the front, locating it on four pegs at the top of the trunks after painting, then adding waste-gate cooling hoses between the intakes at the rear of the side pods. The nose cone and rear wing supports are both covered in carbon-fibre decals and installed in their respective places at either end of the vehicle, painting the four parts of the wing red and white before applying decals over their inner and undersides and assembling it so it can be installed on the supports at the rear. A brief interlude to make the wheels is next, using the flexible black tyres, which have a seam around the centre of their circumferences. These can be removed by ‘scrubbing’ the contact surface with a motor tool or other sanding material to replicate the scrubbed wheels that were usually fitted before the race so that the car got maximum traction for the start, providing the tyres were also warm. The hubs are single parts, and like their full-sized counterparts, they are attached to the car by a single stud, which in this case slips into a poly-cap rather than screwing in. Dymag decals are provided for each hub, two per rim, and if F1 isn’t your thing, you’ll need to fit the smaller, narrower wheels to the front axles for maximum traction at the rear, which will stop your more knowledgeable friends from laughing at your mistake. The completed wheels slide into position and are held there by the poly-caps, whilst giving you the flexibility to remove them whenever you need to. The front wing provides down-force to the wheels, and much of this assembly is moulded as a single part, adding a small section under the nose, and two end-caps, after painting it all white and applying carbon-fibre decals to the inner faces of the caps. Another carbon-fibre decal is applied to the full width of the wing on the underside, consisting of three separate sections to make it a little easier to wrangle. The main portion of the bodyshell is moulded as one, adding the small windscreen to the front of the cockpit, and a pair of intake inserts to the holes in the side pods, marked L and R to ensure you fit them in the correct position. The wing mirrors are each single parts, using two small chromed stickers to depict the mirrors, and mounting them either side of the driver on their short supports. The bodyshell and nose cone can then be lowered over the car to complete the build, or you can make up two A-frame trestles from four-parts each to keep the body off the floor using a similar method used by the mechanics during maintenance, showing off the details of the chassis. Markings Mclaren Honda were sponsored by the Marlboro brand of cigarettes in 1988, while such advertising was starting to be banned in many countries, and MENG have used the name McLaren on the rear wing, which IIRC was the case in some countries that had already moved to ban advertising of cigarettes and tobacco-based products. You shouldn’t smoke, vape, or drink too much, but you know that already, so I won’t go on. Two decal options are supplied as you’d expect, with just a small decal on the roll-over differentiating between Senna and Prost, the drivers for that year, plus their numbers on the nose and sides of the rear wing. Shell and Honda also get a look-in, with their logos also found on the sheet. The stickers are chrome, but look blue due to the reflections in the photobooth. You can see your face in them, although there's a little distortion. Decals are printed in China to a high standard, and have good register, sharpness and colour density. There are no decals included for the Marlboro red stripes that make the car stand out, but instead you are given a slight step in the surface of the bodyshell to mask against, and I’m unsure if that will work. The step is infinitesimal, but is the additional layer or layers of red enough to make up the difference in height? Will subsequent layers of clear gloss after decaling encourage the steps (and the carrier film on the decals) to disappear? I’m not sure. You can of course sand away the step, which shouldn’t be too onerous, as there are only short lengths on the body. Conclusion The old McLaren MP4 was an impressive machine, and this new kit does it justice. The hardest part will be choosing the correct shade of red, although Zero paints have probably got a shade in their range already, followed by a little patience applying the many carbon-fibre decals, and deciding what to do about the step mentioned above. Overall, it’s a cracking kit though. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Dune - Atreides Ornithopter (DS-007) 1:72 MENG via Creative Models Ltd Dune began life in the 1960s as the first book in a long-running series by Frank Herbert, and several attempts have been made to realise the initial book in movie form, with varying levels of success. David Lynch made a decent, if simplified attempt at it in the 1980s, although it was a flawed movie with irritating voice-overs (from my point of view, at least), while a three-part TV movie in 2000 was considered a reasonable adaptation, but I haven’t seen that one. This latest expedition into the deserts of Arrakis benefits from the availability of realistic Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) that can be used to enhance the scope and scale of the saga as it deserves, without looking false, for the most part. It also benefitted from a massive budget and acclaimed director, not to mention a cast of many famous actors, although David Lynch’s version also had some famous faces, including a young Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck before his Star Trek days. The new film has been split into two episodes to portray as much of the book’s content as possible in an effort to retain the important plot subtleties of the original story, and part 2 has been out now for several months, rounding off the original story, allegedly, with the possibility of more to come if it has made enough money for the studio, which I expect it has by now. I still haven’t seen the second part yet, so no spoilers please! The new film of course has some great new ships, which includes a less toy-like Ornithopter, which is more insectoid and less clockwork bubble-bug than the 1984 edition. They are quadruped aircraft with eight helicopter blade-like ‘wings’ providing the lift in an insectoid manner, and a pointed nose that incorporates expansive windscreens that probably don’t give as good a field of view forward as you’d think. The Kit This is a new kit that follows on the heels of the ‘vehicle scale’ mini-kits that now look more like stocking-fillers as this new tooling is in 1:72, corresponding with the dominant scale in which the Bandai Star Wars kits were released in, and giving modellers to opportunity to compare their sizes, and display them together without any disparity in scale. The kit arrives in a standard MENG box with a painting of the ‘thopter on the front in desert tones, and a satin finish to the box, as usual. There are six sprues of dark olive-green styrene plus a slide-moulded cockpit framing, two in beige for the base, two poly-caps in black, a small black sprue containing crew figures, a pale faun sprue with a pair of Atreides emblems, the instruction booklet printed in colour on glossy paper, and no decals. The only emblems are the two styrene parts that are painted a contrasting shade on the finished model. Detail is excellent, and the inclusion of four crew figures and the logos in contrasting colours indicates that the designers kept a watching eye on the novice modeller that may not either want to, or be able to paint the model, whilst providing sufficient detail for the hardened Sci-Fi modeller. Construction begins with the cockpit and rear interior, with a step between the two areas, the lower section for the flight crew, who controls the aircraft with twin sticks that are inserted into the deck along with a pair of rudder pedals that have an instrument binnacle installed between them, rising up near the pilot’s eyeline. Four identical crew seats are fitted with bases, building the pilot from two parts so his arms can reach out to the sticks, and three other passengers with their hands on laps, essentially in the same pose and garb except for their head gear and hair styles. Paint the uniformsa dark steel colour, and the visible human aspects any shade you like. The seats and pegged-in crew are inserted into holes in the cockpit floor, the pilot at the front, a row of two passengers behind him, and another row of two seats, one of which is empty, behind them on the raised portion of the floor. Attention shifts to the attachment points for the eight blades that sprout from both sides of the fuselage, and the first assembly creates two pairs of sockets that pivot in unison with the corresponding socket on the opposite side, thanks to intermeshing quadrant gears that are moulded into the rear of each socket, requiring them to be careful placed in the correct socket before gluing the two retaining surrounds together. Four blade sockets are made in the first batch, followed by another four that are made in the same way, joining the two assemblies together before they are trapped between the fuselage halves in the next step, fitting the cockpit, a pivoting access ramp on the underside, and a recess in the aft slope of the fuselage before joining the two halves together, then adding a top cover to the blade area, and an insert that extends from the rear of the fuselage some way down the boom at the rear. The boom is further detailed with a pair of exhausts and an insert at the rear, plus a rail that extends the length of the boom on each side, attaching on several pins along its length. Another insert is placed under the nose with a poly-cap at the front, adding detail inserts around the blade sockets, and the Atreides emblems just aft of the cockpit. Two Harrier-like exhausts are fixed behind the rearmost blade pairing on each side, clicking four tapering surrounds to the blade sockets on both sides without glue. The reason for the poly-cap under the nose becomes clear now, building a pair of twin weapons (or searchlights - it's a while since I watched the first film) on a central rod, which clips into a holder with another part that covers the innards, and a cylindrical drum with a peg on the upper side, which slots into the hole under the nose, held in place by the poly-cap. The entire upper nose and framing for the cockpit is moulded as one part using sliding moulds, clipping four clear panes into the top, one on each side, and another two in the nose. The clear parts have lugs on the sides that allow them to clip into position without glue, and while they may show a little through the windows, they are much tidier than the risk of glue squirting out of the sides. The completed assembly is slotted into the fuselage horizontally, locating on three pegs that slide into corresponding holes in the fuselage halves. Whether you want to install the wings before the landing gear is entirely up to you, but you have a choice of depicting them straight and ready for flight, or folded back for storage, installing the plug-in end of the blade on the main part without glue, ensuring that the recessed portion of the peg is facing upward when you insert them into the sockets with a click, four per side. To deploy them, the blade is pivoted out straight, and then rotated 180° so that the moulded-in pivot pin ends are at the top. This will prevent them sagging in the cabinet, although the model will also take up a lot of room, as each blade measures over 33cm from the pivot-point. The craft’s landing skids can be posed up or down, pivoting around a central island, which comprises of seven different parts depending on your choice. The gear legs are built from a varying number of parts, each sub-assembly receiving a letter code to assist with placement later, and each of the four main legs ending in a pad, except for two seemingly vestigial legs at the rear. They are plugged into the upper assembly according to the last sub-step of each option, and this in turn is mated with the underside of the craft, posing the lower hatch in the open position with the gear down if you wish. The stand is moulded in a desert sand colour, and consists of a two-part support, with a pivot at the top that can be manipulated to various angles, and the base, which is a single gently undulating part that has a uniform sandy texture on its surface, and a circular dais where the support plugs into a large rectangular peg. Markings There are profiles printed at the rear of the instructions, with colours in MENG codes and Gunze Sangyo’s Acrysion range. The main colour is Dark Earth, with black frames around the windows, and dark yellow for the Atreides emblem. Conclusion I’ve been waiting for a larger kit of the Ornithopter, and MENG have now granted that wish, so I’m very happy. There is good detail included on a kit that is a relatively simple build, and offers plenty of scope for the modeller to practice their paint and weathering effects on the kit when it is ready. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Hello all, Here is my entry for this GB - Meng's new 1/48 F-4E Phantom, which will be marked as Kurnass 209, of 69 'Hammers' squadron of the Israeli Air Force in the early 1980s. Kurnass 209 was credited with downing 4 Migs during its service. I had initially planned a Spitfire for this GB but I've got the F-4 bug during my current ZM F-4E AUP build, so couldn't resist this one. Will be nice to compare and contrast it to the ZM offering! Kit: Plenty of plastic there, which, from initial inspection, looks nice and crisp. Extras: I'll be using a set of Quickboost seats, a mixture of Isradecal and Hi-decal (for the checkerboard rudder and squadron emblem) sheets and an Airdoc (I think!) modified AIM-9 rail for one of the front AIM-7 recesses. This was salvaged from an old build along with a set of intake plugs, so hope they fit! I'm not finished there; I'll be ordering a Quinta cockpit set, Advanced Modelling Products paint mask and the unique refuelling probe from BAM models. I also have a Centre line pylon from Hypersonic models on the way (it's for the ZM kit but think it will fit this!) I'd been toying with what to load this with. I wanted to arm it to the teeth, so had iniatlly thought about 6x AGM-65 on the wings along with 5x M117 bombs on the centre. But from some reading, it looks like the AGM-65s weren't widely employed. I then thought about 2x AGM-78 and the M117s, but it appears that only one squadron flew with the former, of course not the one I wish to depict. I then noticed the kit comes with some early GBU-10s so I think I've settled on 2x GBU-10 on the wings, 1x AIM-9 on the modified pylon, 1x AN/ALQ-119 (pinched from the G boxing as it's incorrect for the timeframe of that kit), 2x wing tanks then the 5x M117 on the centreline TER, which will be pinched from another ZM kit. Whether the jet would carry LGBs and dumb bombs is open to debate, but there is an image in the Isradecal book of a jet armed with 2x GBU-8 and 8x MK.82 on the wings so it's not beyond the realms of possibility! Some essential reference: @Alan P has also kindly loaned me the Double Ugly Kurnass book. So I'll probably see another load out in there Some online materials: https://www.isradecal.com/_files/ugd/ddb4b4_e1b95b2a73ba4bb898b0d40929e2c121.pdf (scroll to 2nd to last page for an image of 209) http://martinsammodels.com/Webpage/Pages/Models/Reviews/Reveiws/Cutting Edge/F-4/isreali/pictures/instructions 3.jpg I also have a PDF copy of Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces book, which is also a good read! Dave

AH-64D Saraf Heavy Attack Helicopter (QS-005) 1:35 MENG via Creative Models Ltd The AH-64 emerged as the successful entrant to the Advanced Attack Helicopter programme in the mid-1970s, as the potential replacement for the ageing AH-1 Cobra. It first flew in 1975, and went into production in the early 80s, entering US Army service in early 1986, ironing out the many issues that plagued the early airframes, whilst it also demonstrated its phenomenal potential as an attack platform. One such issue was the rotor blades, which were lasting less than 10% of their expected lifespan, and were a difficult fix, taking several iterations before the problems were fully resolved, and the expected lifespan achieved. The resolution of a laundry list of issues and the advance of technology led to an updated variant, which was cancelled in favour of a further improved airframe that became the AH-64C, differing from the -D only by the lack of Longbow radar that would be a major improvement to the type’s capabilities, allowing it to ‘see’ its enemies over terrain without exposing itself to enemy fire to any great extent. During this period, Augusta Westland became involved in the project, and the Westland AH-64D with more powerful engines and folding rotor blades was a by-product, giving the British Army a powerful weapon that is highly regarded worldwide, the airframes built from kits that were upgraded with after market parts to the buyer’s specification. Sound familiar? Overseas exports have been robust due to the Apache’s reputation, having performed admirably during the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, where the British Army airframes were known as ‘the Mosquito’ by the Taliban, as the way it was used by the British as a weapons platform that hovered high above the combat zone almost out of hearing range, meant that its 30mm explosive tipped rounds or Hellfire missiles appeared to come out of the blue. Israel ordered forty-eight AH-64Ds early on, and these are known as Saraf in their service, a fire-spitting serpent of some description. They have been well-used since they entered service, and in-service upgrades have been made to incorporate the indigenous Spike Long-Range (LR) Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), which can be launched in Fire and Forget, or Lock-on After Launch modes as the need arises, with a longer range than the excellent Hellfire that further enhances the type’s capability, guided by a fibre-optic cable that it pays out. They can also now carry 70mm laser-guided missiles, making them smaller, more cost-effective, and with less collateral damage potential due to its small size and warhead. The Apache/Saraf continues in Israeli service and development worldwide, with its service is unlikely to end very soon. The Kit This is a reboxing with new parts of the 2023 tooling from MENG, and is available in either standard boxing, or as a special edition with resin figures to crew the model once you have completed it. The kit arrives in a large top-opening box in MENG’s usual satin-finish, and inside the box is extremely full, the Special Edition having a blue card band around one end of the box. There are sixteen sprues, two fuselage halves and several loose parts in grey styrene, two sprues of clear parts, a Photo-Etch (PE) fret in thick-gauge brass, a small tree of black poly-caps, a decal sheet with a tiny extra sheet that you could quite easily miss/lose, a sheet of pre-cut kabuki-style masks that have been pre-weeded on a clear acetate background, the thick instruction booklet in landscape sub-A4 and printed in spot colour, an A2-sized painting and decaling guide that is folded in four, three pages of thick card detailing the Apache in Israeli service in four languages, only one of which I understand. The first thing that hits you on opening bags is that the aircraft is large at this scale, over 41cm as it exits the box without its FLIR turret equipped nose cone. Construction begins with the twin cockpit, adding side consoles, flight controls and additional details to both crew positions, building up the armoured seats with frames, headrests and lumbar support, then adding bulkheads and instrument panels after applying decals as per the scrap diagram nearby. Their mission-specific equipment differentiates the two positions, adding more decals, coamings, and sidewalls above the consoles that turn the cockpit into a tub. The base plate for the rotor is a slender rectangular platform with a short turret moulded into the forward end, onto which a cylinder and cruciform assembly are fitted, adding four triangular supports to the sides, and a blade-adjustment mechanism on top of another cruciform plate. The rotor shaft is built from two halves, and has a collet fitted around the top that has a pair of dog-bone actuators and a zig-zag adjuster threaded through the rear and attached at each end. The fuselage halves are prepared next, remembering to remove the foam packaging support from one side, along with the flexible adhesive layer that holds it in position. It shouldn’t leave a residue, but a wipe with some isopropyl alcohol (IPA) won’t do any harm. Several holes are drilled out from within, fixing a two-part cylindrical assembly in the port tail root, plus a large rounded detail insert on both flanks of the fuselage, and another small two-part duct insert in the engine bulge on the starboard side. The fuselage can now be closed around the cockpit and the rotor head assembly, creating a four-part bulbous insert to the top of the fin, filling the cut-out in the forward edge. Turning the fuselage over, an insert is glued into the belly, and the two winglets are made from eight parts each and plugged into slots in the sides of the fuselage. The two sponsons on the fuselage sides that house much of the avionics and fuel are each supplied as separate parts, and have avionics inserts near the front that can be left open, or covered by a hatch, adding extra parts in and above the bays, plus a rectangular cover with rounded corners at the rear of the sponsons. The port sponson has a landing-gear piston inserted inside near the front, and a link hose at the rear, then additional details are glued to the mid-fuselage, a transmission tunnel to the top of the boom, and a ‘power bulge’ at the root of the boom. This kit includes both engines, and they are each made from a plethora of parts, all of which have colour call-outs, which carries on throughout the build, creating the triple exhausts and their heat dispersal boxes that mount on the rear of the large circular manifold, mating them on the lower cowling, fixing ancillary assemblies and cowling panels around them, some of which have sensors and lenses installed. The intake lip is a shallow torus, with a diffuser made from three parts and mounted in the centre. The opposite engine is made in mirror image, and when complete, they are mounted on each side of the fuselage on five tabs to create a strong join, making the choice to close the top cowlings or posing them open. Each option uses the same three parts to create the L-profiles cover as a base, and the open option adds a stay to hold the panel open at the correct angle. The canopy is a large assembly, and is crystal clear, with pre-cut masks provided to help you keep it that way, with masks provided for inside and out for added realism. The blast shield between the two crew members is also provided with a mask, and the rectangular hole in the centres are intended to be there, and are painted the same black as the surround. The main canopy part has several detail parts and hoses fitted around the interior, plus a glare-shield with a ‘No Grab’ decal applied. This fixed portion is glued in place, adding frames and personal weapons to the open side, then detailing the two doors with handles and masking on both sides, deciding whether to pose them open or closed, the open position adding support struts to the centre framework, and a PE strip down the rear. Detailed painting guides are shown in scrap diagrams nearby, as are the positions of the final glare-shield and its decal. Attention then turns to the area around the rotor head, placing an insert over the rotor, and adding sensors, which includes a faceted laser-deflection turret, and a small fairing that is partly under the main insert, and drilling out two 1mm holes in the circular base for the afore mentioned turret. The nose of the Apache carries a host of equipment that is referred to in the instructions as ‘Nose Mounted Electro-Optical Equipment’. The twin turrets have a pair of poly-caps at their hearts, and have faceted lenses on one side, mounting on a centre-section on which they rotate, which in turn rotates under a platform with its own poly-cap trapped inside, and that in turn slots into the nose fairing, with yet another turret pivoting on the top poly-cap, again with lenses that are clear parts. The various turrets should be push-fitted in position, with no glue needed, even if you’re unlikely to ‘play’ with then later. The fuselage is prepared by adding several panels around the nose joint, with a choice of cheek sensors on both sides, and windscreen wipers with twin arms on both front screen panels. The nose assembly can then be glued in place on a T-shaped tab and corresponding hole in the fuselage, with scrap diagrams assisting with sensor placement. The Saraf shares its gear with every other Apache, and these are single struts raked sharply to the rear, mating with the struts inserted inside the sponsons earlier in the build. The wheels are in two parts each, and have a subtle weighting at the bottom, plus two masks per tyre, one per hub. Wire fenders are made from two parts and glued to the legs on moulded-in flat-spots. The M230 Bushmaster Chain Gun is one of the Apache/Saraf’s primary weapons, and it is the one that strikes the most terror into its enemies. The breech and barrel are moulded in three parts, sitting in a frame that is then surrounded by a two-part protective cage underneath, with an actuator and the ammo feed fitted into the top. The ammo feed has been separated into three sections that are glued side-by-side to obtain the correct shape and level of detail, trapping it between the support trunnions with a circular top where it rotates in the insert, held in position with a washer, being careful with the glue, then adding two cable bundles, before inserting it under the fuselage and adding small parts in front. The tail wheel is comparatively complex compared to the main gear, fitting the two-part wheels (with masks) into a yoke, then trapping that between a five-part mount that slides into the rear of the tail after inserting the curved rear bulkhead. The elevator is made from upper and lower halves, adding a pair of strakes to the trailing edge, then inserting it into the rear of the fin on two tabs, plus an actuator that retreats inside the boom. The strakes are folded from PE parts, and one should be facing up while the other is angled downwards, as per the scrap diagrams nearby. There is a choice of open or closed hatches on the bays in the fuselage sides, and a host of sensors, aerials and antennae are scattered around the boom and aft fuselage, plus more on the fin, and two PE strakes on the sloped area behind the rotor, either side of the exhausts. Grab handles and foot holds are added to the forward fuselage, duplicating the sensor fit on both sides of the fuselage for the most part, and installing a large fairing under the root of the boom. Apart from the rotors, the model is mostly complete, and the weapons are next to be made. Four pylons are made up in pairs, separating the inboard and outboard assemblies, although they look very similar, and are each made from three parts. The Spike-LR missiles are each loaded in a protective box that is made from four parts plus a clear lens at the business end, making up eight of these, and two six-part rectangular palettes that hold two missiles per side, and have a three-part shackle on the upper surface. You can load these or use eight AGM-114 Hellfires instead, each one made from four parts plus either a solid nose, or a nose with a clear lens at your whim. Their launcher is made from seven parts, and like the Spikes, four are mounted in pairs on each side of the two launchers, and each one has a three-part shackle on the top of the launcher. The pylons are suspended under the winglets, adding an end-cap to each one, then you can install two-part fuel tanks with three-part shackles on the inner pylons, and a choice of the Spike or Hellfire carriers on the outboard pylons. In addition, the starboard winglet has a five-part sensor turret hanging from the tip, locating it with the aid of a scrap diagram nearby. The technical name for the Longbow radar is AN/APG-78, and it is a large flattened dome that sits above the rotor head. The complex base and adaptor is made from eleven parts, and it is joined to the underside of the radome, which is made from three parts, imitating the diagonal panel line on the real radar. It is set aside for a while during the building of the four-bladed rotor, starting by gluing the blades into the cruciform centre, then locking them in place with two parts under each blade root, and fitting an actuator ring underneath that is linked to each rotor by small parts to complete the assembly, save for four actuator struts that are added when the rotor is installed on the shaft without glue. The Longbow radome slides over the top of the shaft, with the alternative consisting of two parts that caps off the rotor head if the radome is not being carried. The tail rotor consists of two pairs of blades that are fixed to the head at a shallow angle to each other, fixing a crown on the inner face with actuator rods, and finishing it off with a four-part shaft that then plugs into the bulge near the top of the fin. The last few parts are antennae fixed to the engine pods, and a long aerial on the tip of the fin. Figures The two crew figures that are included in the Special Edition that we’re reviewing are cast in resin, and the detail is stunning. They are moulded with integrated legs and torso, with separate heads and arms to complete them. They each have specialist helmets that are individual to the Apache/Saraf, partly due to the split optics that the crew must master, focusing one eye external to their helmets, the other on a view-screen close to their other eye. They say it gives the crew headaches after a few hours, and I believe them. The standard boxing doesn’t include the figures, but the difference in cost between the two boxings makes the figures excellent value. Markings There are two decal options included on the sheet, and both machines wear the same tritonal camouflage. From the box you can build one Saraf that looks like this: The profiles were large and absolutely covered with decal arrows as you can see, all of which will add tons of visual interest, but made them hard to reproduce here, so we have only provided one, as they are almost identical. Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion We somehow missed out on the initial Apache boxing of this impressive model, so this is the first time we’ve seen the sprues. The detail is superb, and the inclusion of the crew figures for the Special Edition is worth the extra unless you’re figure-phobic like I used to be. It’s a massive model, and the finished article will be well worth the effort you put into building and painting it. Very highly recommended. Special Edition with Figures Standard Boxing (minus Figures) Review sample courtesy of

Hi All, Latest project started few days ago, not a massive WIP, build is simple ish, just adding a few aftermarket bits, Aber cleaning rods, Panzerart barrel when it arrived, R model tracks, have 3d tools but the brackets I have for shovel and axe head are not good enough, tools and clamps by mig. Will be Richard Freiherr Von-Rosen machine nr 300 Paderborn Sept 44. Read his book - very interesting read finished a General in 1982. hoping the rest comes up as good as the wheels, just cannot see if sprocket and idler were cam from the video clip. Cheers All Mark

Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVA RT Test Type-01 TSRT R8 (CS-008) Evangelion Racing 1:24 MENG via Creative Models Ltd The Audi R8 is a two-seat sport car from German auto-manufacturing giant VAG, and was introduced in 2007, based on their R8 Quattro concept car, with the same four-wheel drive platform that was heavily based upon the Lamborghini Gallardo initially, then the Huracán for the second generation, with a predominantly aluminium space frame beneath the sleek body panels, reusing the R8 Le Mans Prototype name on a vastly different looking vehicle. A soft-top Spyder was introduced in 2011 giving purchasers the wind-in-your-hair feeling at high speeds, while it was introduced into motorsport just after launch where it fared extremely well, looking fast even when parked. The motorsport-tuned offering was race-prepped on delivery, and cost roughly 2.5 times the street car, but there’s a lot included for the money, driven by a V10 5.2 litre engine outputting over 500hp through all four wheels. Its power, agility and reliability made it a popular purchase for GT racing teams, and a great deal of success followed over the coming years. In 2011 the LMS Ultra was launched, incorporating all the updates over the preceding years along with a wider bodykit that gave it a better aerodynamic performance, plus enhanced software that made gear transitions faster and smoother, widening the torque available to the driver across the range. The R8 moved to the second generation in 2015, with the race-spec option following swiftly behind, incorporating a substantial price rise and a power output nearing 600hp. The intention of the revised Evo was to improve the driver experience to satisfy the wide range of driver types that were behind the wheel of these cars due to its popularity, although the price is still an impediment to anyone of normal means, so we can’t all pick one up to go racing, more’s the pity. The Evo II arrived in 2021 with another price rise, more improvements to aerodynamics, engine and transmission reliability, torque output and heat dissipation, leading to a further improvement in driving experience for the racers. Production was intended to stop in 2023 but was delayed due to the ongoing demand for the type, so it should be seen for some years yet on the track, as even though Audi Motorsport are withdrawing from GT3 racing along with several other major manufacturers, they have agreed to provide tech. support and spares to customers until at least 2032. RUN'A Entertainment unveiled their new racing team in 2010, the name of which was linked to the Evangelion series of movies, anime and manga, using the Audi R8 in the 2020 season with Shaun Thong and Alex Au at the wheel, although David Chen was the pilot for the Macau Grand Prix. The Kit This is a reboxing of a recent tooling from MENG that depicts the Evangelion Racing Team's Audi R8-based vehicle that participated in the 2020 67th Macau Grand Prix GT Cup, their first international venture, driven by David Chen (Chen Wei An), who achieved third place in the complex street circuit at race’s end. The kit arrives in one of their usual satin-finished boxes with a digital rendering of the subject on the front of the top-opening box. Inside are six sprues and a bodyshell in pale grey styrene, four flexible black tyres in two sizes, a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) metal with an almost black coating, a sheet of sticky mirrored labels for the wing and rear-view mirrors, plus the logos, a sheet of fabric-like material with the seatbelts pre-cut, four black poly-caps, pre-weeded masks for the windows on a clear backing sheet, two decal sheets, instruction booklet printed in colour with profiles on the rear pages. Detail is superb, but then it’s a MENG kit after all. The quality of the mouldings is first-class, and the accessories that come with the kit should mean that most modellers won’t have to expend more on aftermarket, although some are bound to anyway. Construction begins with the flat floor pan, which has a splitter added to the front, and the initial suspension arms in the space where the wheel arches will be. Some detail painting is required along the way, the shades called out in MENG/AK and Acrysion codes, which extends throughout the entire build process. Inner arches are fitted over the front suspension, slotting in struts and combining hubs to brake disks with moulded-in callipers, trapping a poly-cap in each one. The hubs are joined by inserting a steering linkage through the back of the arch and clipping it to the arm at the leading edges of the hubs without glue so that the wheels can remain steerable. The lower rear arches are similarly inserted, adding a latch-part to retain the bodyshell at the rear. The build moves to the interior next, making up the seatbelts using the pre-cut material from the sheet mentioned earlier. The various pieces are threaded through the belt furniture to create five-point racing belts, all of which slip through slots into the rear of the figure-hugging seats, gluing the ends out of sight. The interior is bereft of any creature comforts to save weight, and is instead detailed with the absolute bare necessities for the driver’s use and safety. It starts with the pedal box and fire extinguisher, adding three boxes into the passenger side on the right, another cylinder behind the driver’s seat, and a custom centre console that has a colourful instrument panel decal applied after painting. The steering wheel of a modern racing car is a complex piece of equipment that is covered in buttons, plus an Audi logo, mated to a two-part steering column that is fitted under the dash with a small instrument panel instead of the usual binnacle, with a tubular vent extension directed at the driver to keep him cool. The entire dash is made from carbon fibre, which is replicated here by six specifically shaped decals with carbon weave incorporated, which will need careful application and plenty of decal setting solution to ensure that they conform to the shape of the dash. The completed assembly is fitted on a pair of turrets at the front of the interior, then the completed interior is placed in the floor pan using the same technique. Whilst this model might look like a kerbside kit, the mid-mounted V10 engine is visible through the rear window, and is supplied as part of the kit, all the way down to the sump. The V-shaped block is made from top and bottom halves, adding cylinder heads to the top of each bank, painting them red, and the plugs black. An end cap is added to the transmission with drive-shafts exiting each side, and detail parts are dotted around the block to add interest and cover blank space. Two exhaust manifolds are made from separate halves, adding the exhaust tips at the rear, and fitting them under the cylinder banks on depressions in the surface. The air intake pathway is built from a side-by-side trunking that has a tube laid crossways and two boxes under it, adding it to the top of the engine once completed, installing the completed engine into the aft of the floor pan. Like all racing cars, a substantial roll-cage is found inside the car, made from just three parts initially, the aft portion with a box-section profile, while the frame in the cab is tubular. It is painted and then installed on the floor, stretching back past the engine assembly to provide extra protection from behind, in the hope that the driver doesn’t get too close to the power plant in the event of a crash. A small bulkhead is made up from a styrene part with a clear upper portion, adding a two-part reservoir to the left side within the engine compartment, then the roof of the cage is made from another large contoured part that is well-detailed, and mates with the rest of the cage to complete the driver’s protection. The rear suspension is created in a similar manner to the front, making up hubs that have a poly-cap in between them and the brake disk/calliper combination, slotting the pivots into holes in the swing-arms, and adding a suspension strut with gaiter in between the arms and an A-frame incorporated into the roll-over cage. The tops of the inner arches are fitted to the top of the lower parts added earlier, then the wheels can be made using two pairs of well-moulded rims with spokes around the perimeter, slipping the correctly sized tyres over the front edge and butting them up to the lip at the rear of the rims. Each rim has a pin moulded into the centre rear that slides through the disk hub and into the poly-cap, allowing them to be fitted and removed during construction and painting, whilst letting them rotate freely. The bodyshell has the MENG logo and copyright details moulded into the interior roof in raised letters, plus a few ejector-pin marks in case you want to hide those with some filler and careful sanding. There are also a couple of sprue sections across the windscreen and rear window cut-outs, which should be nipped free and the sprue gates made good before proceeding. You should also decide on a colour to paint the interior, as only some parts have been picked out for painting black, while the main inner surfaces colours are left to you to decide from your references, but a fair bet would be that they match the doors, which are black. The window glazing is supplied with masks to assist you with painting the surrounds black, which is the first task, and extends to the front, rear and side windows. A large recess is cut out of the bonnet for the cooling system, which has a deep ‘bath’ inserted that has a two-layer fan assembly inserted before painting and installation. The headlamp reflectors are painted chrome and are inserted into their cut-outs from within, adding another intake in the bumper, after painting it black, fitting the rear-view mirror in the centre of the windscreen frame, then applying a chrome sticker to depict the mirror surface. The air-intakes for the brakes have their louvres applied to an insert that stretches across the front of the bumper, with another pair fitted into the fronts of the rear arches, the louvres painted light orange before installation, then two covers are fitted to each of the front corners, adding the headlamp glazing at the same time, plus two aerodynamic strakes on each corner. The aft light lenses are applied to the rear of the car after painting the reflectors chrome, fixing a conical lens in the space below on the right of the bumper. The doors are moulded separately from the bodyshell, and have separate hinge units applied to the A-pillars, and triple louvres added to the upper portion of the B-pillars, adding two decorative accent panels where the quarter-light would be and behind the door, plus two mesh grilles from the PE sheet in the door shut-lines on each side. The doors are made from inner and outer skins that hold the glazing between them, plus a rectangular pivot in the leading-edge, and a wing-mirror that slots into the skin of the door, which has a mirrored sticker inserted into the rear on each side. All this assumes you masked and painted the glazing in one sitting, but if you didn’t you should probably kick yourself about now. The completed doors clip into the hinges without glue, and can be opened and closed whenever you like, joining the bodyshell to the floor pan on the clips added earlier. The large mesh grille for the intake in the bumper is curved, and a jig is included on the sprues to assist with bending it to shape, but it is probably wise not to anneal it for fear of marring the matt black finish. Happily, the curve is gradual, so shouldn’t be an issue. Later variants of the R8 were fitted with a rear wing to add extra downforce, which in this case is made from two J-shaped supports for the separate wing, which has two end-caps attached after painting and decaling with a large Audi Sport logo, a scrap diagram showing the moulding overflow ‘pips’ that should be removed from the support frames. The rear windscreen is masked and framed with black paint, locating it in the styrene boot lid, which is lowered into position over the engine bay, taking care to align the slots with the wing supports that sprout out of the rear of the engine bay frame. Markings This is a special edition depicting the Evangelion R8 that competed at Macau in 2020, so the decals are specific to this vehicle. From the box you can build the following: Decals are printed in China, having good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. It includes carbon fibre-effect decals for the dash, instrument decals, as well as the branding, and striping, plus those small self-adhesive Audi, V10 and R8 logo badges for the front, wing and rear of the vehicle, not to mention four Brembo logos for the brake callipers. Conclusion MENG create good car models, and this one is no exception, with high levels of detail from the box, plus many extras that would be considered aftermarket by many other manufacturers. It also helps that the R8 is a good-looking car in road-going or racing forms, with this bright scheme a little different from the norm. Highly recommended. At time of writing, this kit is available from Creative Models Ltd at a healthy discount. Act now to avoid disappointment or other negative feelings related to its absence from your stash Review sample courtesy of

#11/2024 Most modern aircraft my dad has built so far Meng kit, main markings with Caracal decals, stencils are a mix of the kit and Caracal ones. Overall not a bad kit. The new Tamiya kits may be superior but also twice the price... Main colour painted with Mr Paint Camouflage Grey FS36170, lighter RAM panels with a mix of Mr Paint Camouflage Grey FS36170 and Dark Gull Grey, canopy tinted with a mix of Clear Yellow and Smoke. Added brake lines by using lead wire. Build thread here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235137703-state-partnership148-lockheed-martin-f-35a-lightning-ii-134th-fs-yellow-scorpions-vermont-ang-the-green-mountain-boys/ In 2019, the Vermont ANG was the first NG to be equipped with the F-35A. In 2022, Austria joined the US State Partnership Program, where every state´s National Guard becomes partner with one ore more foreign military forces. Because Austria and Vermont had already military relations since the 80ies when Austria helped build up the mountain warfare school in Vermont, the choice was more or less obvious. To celebrate the one year anniversary, two F-35s visited Austria last summer during the exercise Air Defender 2023 in Germany and did some flights together with our Austrian Airforce Eurofighters. DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0004 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0010 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0008 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0009 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0014 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0010 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0005 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0012 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0006 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0007 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0015 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0016 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0013 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0017 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0018 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0019 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0020 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0021 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0022 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0023 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0012 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0014 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0003 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

In 2022, Austria joined the US State Partnership Program, where every state´s National Guard becomes partner with one ore more foreign military forces. Because Austria and Vermont had already military relations since the 80ies when Austria helped build up the mountain warfare school in Vermont, the choice was more or less obvious. To celebrate the one year anniversary, two F-35s visited Austria last summer and did some training flights with our Austrian Airforce. Gonna use the Meng kit with markings from Caracal, printed by Cartograf. DSC_0001 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr DSC_0002 by grimreaper110, auf Flickr

Spice Harvester from Dune (MMS-013) MENG via Creative Models Ltd Dune began in the 1960s as a long-running series of books by Frank Herbert, and several attempts have been made to realise the initial book in movie form, with varying levels of success. David Lynch made a decent, if simplified attempt at it in the 1980s, although it was a flawed movie with irritating voice-overs (from my point of view, at least), while a three-part TV movie in 2000 was considered a reasonable adaptation, but I haven’t seen that one. This latest expedition into the deserts of Arrakis benefits from the availability of realistic Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) that can be used to enhance the scope and scale of the saga as it deserves, without looking false. It also benefitted from a massive budget and an acclaimed director, not to mention a cast of many famous actors, although David Lynch’s version also had some famous faces, including a young Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck before his Star Trek days. The new film has been split into two episodes to portray as much of the book’s content as possible in an effort to retain the important aspects of the original story, and part 2 has been out now for a couple of months, rounding off the original story, allegedly, with the possibility of more to come if it has made enough money for the studio, which I expect it has by now. I haven’t seen the second part yet, so no spoilers please! The Spice Harvester is an essential part of the mining of the spice Melange from the deserts of Arrakis, and they are essentially factories on tracks that are dropped by their carriers onto parts of the desert where spice has been detected, in order to extract it. The noise of the Spice Harvesting attracts the giants worms that are native to Arrakis, as they are drawn toward repetitive vibrations, and when they get there, woe betide anyone or anything that remains on the sand. Each harvester is protected by a group of spotters in Ornithopters that keep an eye out for incoming worms, as their appearance is almost inevitable. When one is spotted, the carrier craft swoops in, picks up the factory and airlifts it to safety. In theory. We see what happens to a Spice Harvester when the carrier arrives too late in the first film, although all the crew survive thanks to Duke Leto Atreides happening by with a flight of Ornithopters. The Kit Like the Ornithopters, this kit is also scale-free, although it’s pretty clear that it isn’t the same scale as the ‘thopters, as the factories are massive, in order to be able to mine and process Spice in an economical manner. The kit arrives in a larger end-opening box with a painting of the factory on the front, and instructions on the rear, plus the same basic instruction sheet in four languages and the Japanese safety and contact sheet found in the Ornithopter kits. There are four sprues in olive green/brown styrene, plus a small decal sheet in its own bag, containing just three decals, mainly because factories tend not to be colourful anywhere in the galaxy because it’s not cost-effective. Construction begins with the main hull, which is a slab-like part with tiny aircon units, heat-exchanger pipework and other such greeblies on the top, and very little other than the track housings on the underside. The underside is the first part to be used, adding track attachment straps across the front and rear sections from within, then flipping it over onto its back to mount bogies for the tracks, two at the front and two more on the back. The roof is applied to the top, and sixteen trapezoid track units are made from four parts each, with track links moulded-in to improve the detail. They are plugged into each of the track attachment arms hanging from the holes in the underside in fours, two on each side of the arm. The front, rear and side walls are attached to the blank walls between the top and bottom surfaces, adding more detail, then the Spice mining conveyor is created from top and bottom halves to make hollow pathways, which is mounted on a carrier that is inserted into a trough moulded into the underside in the direction of the vehicle’s travel. Markings There are just three decals included, and there are no colour suggestions on the box, as the machines are a dirty olive green/brown in the movie. If you intend to make a more realistic model and paint it, there are tons of shades from all the major manufacturers that could be used, and the opportunity for weathering with heavy sand discolouring could be quite fun if you like that sort of thing. The decals are printed in China, and suitable for the task in hand, as they’re one colour, and almost too wee to see. Make sure you’ve not tied one on the night before applying them, as you’ll need steady hands. Conclusion We understand that 1:72 Ornithopters are on their way from MENG, but this factory vehicle is unlikely to be amongst the up-scaled ships getting an airfing due to its actual size in the movie, so this may be your only option. I could of course be totally wrong! Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Atreides & Harkonnen Ornithopters from Dune (MMS-011 & MMS-014) MENG via Creative Models Ltd Dune began in the 1960s as a long-running series of books by Frank Herbert, and several attempts have been made to realise the initial book in movie form, with varying levels of success. David Lynch made a decent, if simplified attempt at it in the 1980s, although it was a flawed movie with irritating voice-overs (from my point of view, at least), while a three-part TV movie in 2000 was considered a reasonable adaptation, but I haven’t seen that one. This latest expedition into the deserts of Arrakis benefits from the availability of realistic Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) that can be used to enhance the scope and scale of the saga as it deserves, without looking false. It also benefitted from a massive budget and acclaimed director, not to mention a cast of many famous actors, although David Lynch’s version also had some famous faces, including a young Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck before his Star Trek days. The new film has been split into two episodes to portray as much of the book’s content as possible in an effort to retain the important parts of the original story, and part 2 has been out now for a couple of months, rounding off the original story, allegedly, with the possibility of more to come if it has made enough money for the studio, which I expect it has by now. I haven’t seen the second part yet, so no spoilers please! The new film of course has some great new ships, which includes a less toy-like Ornithopter, which is more insectoid and less clockwork bubble-bug than the 1984 edition. They are quadruped aircraft with eight helicopter blade-like ‘wings’ providing the lift in an insectoid manner, and a pointed nose that incorporates expansive windscreens that probably don’t give as good a field of view forward as you’d think. The Kit Each of the two Ornithopters arrives in a small end-opening box, and are similar in looks and box style to Bandai’s Vehicle series of Star Wars kits, as they too are sold without scale, and the dominant packaging colour is black, plus the stand included is functionally identical to the Bandai offering. The instructions are printed in colour on the back of the box, and inside are four or five sprues in an olive green/brown shade of styrene, a small black sprue containing the stand parts, and a separately bagged decal sheet. Detail is good, but due to the small scale, the canopies are solid and are later depicted by decals, and the landing gear can be posed retracted or deployed, using the stand, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bandai stand for either option. There is also a small sheet that briefly discusses in four languages how to remove parts from the sprues and apply the decals that are included. A tiny slip of white paper is folded into that sheet, but as it is all in Japanese, my phone shows that it contains contact details for Japanese purchasers to get in touch if they have a problem, and some warnings that the kit is suitable for people of 14 years or older, and to be wary of inhaling dust created by sanding. The kits share three of the olive sprues, as the blades and landing gear are common between both, adding one more sprue for the Atreides ‘thopter that has a straight tail boom, and two for the Harkonnen vehicle, which has an alternative forward glazing and a forked tail to differentiate it quickly on screen. They can be built as snap-together kits, but will benefit from gluing, particularly if you intend to paint and weather them, applying the decals during the process. Construction begins with the two fuselage halves, mounting the cockpit and nose at the front, and a single-part tail for the Harkonnen ‘thopter, or a two-part straight tail for Atreides. Atreides has four wing-root dog-bones affixed in pairs at the top and bottom of both the fuselage sides, which later receives the eight blades in either the folded position, or flared to the perpendicular outboard for flight, while the Harkonnen bird has only three per side. The landing gear uses different parts for stowed and deployed, slotting into the underside of the fuselage. The stand has three options of where to place the support on the base, and at the top of the support is a ball-joint that the cup clips onto, a peg on top joining it to the underside of the fuselage to give the impression of flight, and the ability to adjust the angle and bank of the model to your needs. Common Parts to Both Kits Atreides Ornithopter Specific Parts (MMS-011) Harkonnen Ornithopter Specific Parts (MMS-014) Markings The decals pictured above are essentially the glazing of the canopies, plus a few tiny emblems for the sides and front of the fuselage that differ between the kits. They are well-printed and suitable for the task, and the main windscreen panel includes the internal framing, but if you wish to go off-book for your paint scheme, you may consider painting the windscreens with the aid of masks instead to avoid having to match the colour on the decals. Conclusion Pocket-sized, and pocket-friendly, these kits are small enough to slip in between other models in your cabinet, and although they don’t have cockpits depicted for practical reasons, the rest of the detail is crisply defined. Highly recommended. Atreides Ornithopter (MMS-011) Harkonnen Ornithopter (MMS-014) Review sample courtesy of

New tool kit from Meng Model - ref. LS-015 - McDonnel Douglas F-4G Phantom II - WildWeasel Source: http://www.meng-model.com/en/contents/59/512.html Box art V.P.

FIAT G-91R.1 2 Stormo, Italian Air Force Treviso, Italy, 1985 This is the Meng 1/72 G-91 kit built more or less from the box – I even used kit decals this time which worked really well. A new ejection seat was needed for which I used an Aeroclub white metal example from the stash. Surface details are very fine and emphasised the control surfaces slightly to make them stand out from panel lines. The vortex generators on the rear fuselage were so fine that they had almost disappeared and I used very small pieces of stretched sprue to represent them better. Overall, though, a nice little kit. It’s brothers are a German aircraft from the Revell kit, a two-seater from the Aeroclub kit with parts from Revell and a Portuguese example which is basically Revell.

Hi Pals, I finish the model and here are some photos of it. To say that it was a quality and well finished kit, without major problems that any modeller with some experience knows how to solve satisfactorily. Added to that is a model that, by not having interiors, and with clean and simple lines, helps a lot with its assembly. It's practically OOB, with the exceptions of the added Zimmerit (Tamiya stickers), the ABER metal antenna, and an MG34 machine gun, from the spare parts box and the metal front MG as well. The Zimmerit, not being from the MENG brand, could be a serious problem, but, surprisingly, the dimensions of the two kits (Tamiya and MENG) must be very similar, because there were no major mismatches, everything was quite well adjusted. In the instructions, they indicated that it had to be placed before the accessories, but I didn't see it, and I did it the other way around...maybe it was more difficult, but with a cutter, I was able to cut off excess. In some places I used CA glue to avoid peeling later. Note that the front and rear hooks, as links, should not be placed without having joined the hull pieces, because otherwise they cannot be joined. In my case, I put them in to prevent them from getting lost, since they don't come with glue, so I had to do a bit of thankless work to fix it. The tracks turned out to be simple, since the pieces are a good size, and their fit is also very good, and the kit also includes some jigs to help you assemble them. The PEs are few and easy to work on (I love it...lol). I didn't really like the paint schemes proposed by the kit, and although I did tests, in the end, I decided to clean it (several times), and make a model with the basic color, and with little use, without marks. For the painting I used the AK DK set, with AB, modulating Vallejo MA Red Primer layer, and for the weathering, 501 oils and various pigments. Small leaves added at random points on the model, fixed with matte varnish. I have only varnished with satin, the parts that do not wear Zimmerit, I imagine it would be more matte than glossy, and neither the parts that accumulate dust. Thank you very much for watching and commenting as always. Greetings and Happy New Year 2024.🎄 Francis.👍 Some shots on detail... A couple in B/W... The (hypothetical) historical photo... And a few with his brother Henschel (Zvezda posted on the forum): https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235094156-all-the-beasts-hail-to-the-kingtiger-kintiger-henschel-turret-135-zvezda/#comment-4095968

colourblind Middle aged beginner coming through. First stages down.

Chinese J-20 Stealth Fighter (LS-002) 1:48 MENG via Creative Models Ltd The J-20 is China’s first fifth generation fighter, making heavy use of stealth technologies to give it an advantage during operation in a contested air-space, starting the project in the 2000s as a successor to a previous project earlier in the decade. Chengdu aviation developed the J-20 in response to the requirement, and it has been a work in progress, even after the initial ground-handling and flight testing that occurred in 2010, using Russian built engines that were fitted as a temporary measure whilst they worked out the issues with their own indigenous engines. The new high-tech Chinese engines were expected to provide a significant boost in performance, adding stealth characteristics to the exhausts, and the possibility of vectored thrust to improve manoeuvrability. A home-grown engine designated WS-10 was chosen initially to remove their reliance on Russian engines, with the more advanced WS-15 expected to be fitted to new-build airframes when development was complete, then retro-fitted to earlier airframes as the opportunity arose. Several prototypes were seen performing flight tests throughout the next decade, with limited numbers of the type entering service toward the end of the decade, with improvements still coming on stream throughout this period. After the initial low-rate production batch, full production started, and it soon gained momentum, leading to the replacement of many older 4th generation fighters in service, particularly around China’s borders, where they would expect to intercept intruders. Some airframes have been used as adversary trainers, where they take the part of F-22s or F-35s in combat, to allow both “sides” to learn how to cope with adversaries flying different generations of fighters. The design of the jet, known by NATO code Fagin was established and fixed for full production, adding two other variants to the development roster, one of which represents the first two-seat stealth fighter in service in the world, with a prototype built and observed in 2022 under the designation J-20S. The two-seater isn’t simply a trainer, but will also be used as a combat airframe where the workload is shared between the two crew, using sensor fusion, carrying out electronic warfare duties, or controlling UAVs or drones as part of their weapon systems as a force-multiplier. The J-20B is an improved variant of the single-seat type that has improved stealth characteristics, and is thought to use the final WS-15 engine, which increases the power available for super cruise substantially, and this too was also first spotted in 2022, demonstrating the rapidity at which the type is developing. The ongoing improvements to the J-20 are rapidly bringing it up to a similar capability to the American F-22, despite concerns that a canard-equipped fighter would have compromised stealth capabilities, which seems not to have been an issue as far as the Chinese engineers and designers were concerned. The main weapons bay is found in the belly, where the larger weapons are carried, with serrated doors and margins of the bay to scatter radar returns. The smaller weapons bays in the sides of the fuselage behind the intakes are similarly stealthy, but the weapons can be deployed and the bays closed again to maintain stealth, allowing the missiles to be launched fractionally faster without having to open doors and bring out the missiles before launch. It is thought that these bays are in the process of being redesigned to accommodate 6 missiles using a new ejection rack, and research is underway to reduce the diameter of future missiles to assist with packing as many as possible into the bays without having to use the four underwing hard-points that will spoil its stealthy profile. The Kit This is a new tooling from MENG that was released in the last days of 2023, taking some time to reach Europe, and it is the most recent of only a few kits of this type in 1:48, so should more closely represent an in-service airframe. It does appear to have the Diverterless Supersonic Inlet (DSI) bulges that were more recently added to the design, one of the engineering innovations that both improves the aircraft’s stealth, and reduces its weight by offloading additional complexity of the intakes, hiding the rotating engine faces by using a serpentine trunk within the fuselage. The kit arrives in a substantial top-opening box with a painting of a J-20 launching missiles from its open main bay, and inside the box there are seven sprues and three fuselage parts in grey styrene, a clear sprue, a clear red sprue, a strip of four polycaps, a small Photo-Etch (PE) fret, decal sheet, and the instruction booklet, printed in colour on glossy paper, and stapled into a portrait sub-A4 format. For a change, construction begins with detailing the upper fuselage part, adding two polycaps in sockets for the canards on the fuselage sides, fitting two clear sensor windows forward and aft of the cockpit opening, and applying the shallow refuelling probe bay on the starboard edge of the nose chine. Modern cockpits are relatively simple by comparison to earlier fighter jets, with many of the knobs and switches moved to a large Multi-Function Display (MFD) that takes up most of the instrument panel. The cockpit tub is fitted with rudder pedals, plus side console mounted throttle and stick, using the ‘Hands on Throttle and Stick’ (HOTAS) schema that is common to modern fighters. Once painted, the tub is inserted into position, locating on four turrets within the upper fuselage, applying plenty of glue for a strong bond. At the rear of the upper fuselage, the serrated cowlings of the twin engines are fitted on a pair of turrets with a healthy overlap for strength, and two more polycaps are inserted in cups that are glued under the pivot-points of the twin tail fins, one each side of the engines. The intakes are made up from two halves each, adding a circular insert depicting the engine front to the aft end, and joining them together on two pins and sockets that hold them both at the correct angle. After painting the trunk interiors a pale greyish-blue, the completed assembly is mated to the lower nose part, fitting the nose gear bay, a detailed insert for the forward sensor, which is glazed over with a faceted clear part, and has a clear red window fitted on either side. To be able to close the fuselage, the three weapons bays must be prepared, starting with the main bay, the largest of the three. This is made from a large roof with moulded-in end walls, adding the side walls and a central divider, painting it white before building the missiles, which are almost complete save for two fins at the rear and a conduit down one side of the missile body, after which they are mounted on a slender pylon and four of them can be installed within the bay. The completed main bay is then clipped into the lower fuselage, locating on three turrets, then turning to the intake-mounted weapons bays. The main parts of these are moulded in a C-profile, fitting end walls to each of them, and installing those in the sides of the intakes, along with the main gear bays that are made from three parts each, and all bays painted white. A clear red window is inserted in a cut-out in the port intake side, reducing the number of sub-assemblies before fuselage closure to two. Those two are identically built exhausts, which can be made with the petals constricted or opened, by using different sets of petal parts around the central circular former. Each petal section has a detail insert on the interior face, then six sections are arranged into a cylinder around each former, the aft section differing in shape to depict your chosen exhaust shape. The exhaust trunk is made from two half cylinders that are closed around the afterburner ring, and has a representation of the rear of the engine closing the forward end, joining the petal assembly to the opposite end of the trunk, and painting it accordingly with shades of burnt metal. The lower fuselage receives the two exhausts in the rear nacelles, while the nose and intake trunking assembly is installed in the front of the part, extending the lower fuselage to full-length. The upper fuselage is then glued over the lower, and it’s worth noting that the two fuselage halves have stiffening ribs criss-crossing them to add strength to the assembly, and much of the blended wing structure is moulded into the fuselage halves, as is often the case with modern stealthy aircraft models. You have a choice of portraying the weapons bays open or closed, showing off the unique talents of these short-range weapons bays that allows them to close the doors with the weapons extended for use. The simplest option is to nip the overflow pips from the doors and fit them in the closed position, ready to move on to the next step. To extend the missiles first requires the building of one or two missiles, which have two separate fins, a nose part, and long pylon, painting and stencilling them before installing them. The bay has a flat-faced insert glued into the bay, which has three curved supports for the missile so that it is suspended outside the bay and slightly below so that the door can still close. The closed doors are each one part with three small slots in the bottom of the doors to cater for the supports, while leaving the doors open adds another part with internal ribbing structure, plus hinges that suspend it from the upper edge of the bay. This is repeated on the opposite side, with a choice of three options per side, which you can mix and match at your whim. The main bay doors must be open to deploy missiles, so there are two choices, the simplest being the closed doors, which is depicted by a single part with serrated edges and hinge lines engraved to give the bay a realistic look. To pose the doors open, three door sections are fitted together with an actuator ram at either end, mounting on the outer edges of the bay, with a scrap diagram showing how they should look from ahead. The landing gear is safely tucked away inside the jet during flight, so only their doors need to give low-observability a thought, and as such their structure is very familiar. The tyres are moulded as two halves, as are the hubs, joining together to make each main gear wheel, which fits to the lower end of the sturdy struts, adding separate oleo-scissor links and a lightened retraction jack that is formed from three parts, with another small strut near to the top of the leg. The two legs are handed, and are fitted inside each bay, locating firmly in the bay for strength. The nose gear leg has two tyre halves that close around a single hub part, flexed into position between the two yoke legs. The strut is adorned with separate scissor-links, twin landing lights with clear lenses, and the retraction jack plus a captive bay door, for which there is a separate scrap diagram to assist with detail painting the part. This too is mounted securely in the bay, with a side-opening bay door with three hinges attaching it to the starboard side. While the model is upside-down, the two canards are push-fitted on the intake sides, two strakes are glued to the sponsons on either side of the exhausts, adding leading-edge slats that can be deployed or retracted by using different parts. A four-lensed sensor is fitted on the belly with a clear lens inserted from behind, and a tubular assembly is located next to it, which appears to be a Luneberg Lens, which is the mechanism by which any stealthed aircraft can be tracked during peacetime. It is understood that the latest airframes have a retractable version of this lens, so they can transition to a war footing without landing. At the trailing edge of the wings, two flap sections with stealthy actuator fairings moulded separately are fitted, selecting different parts for the flaps down option. The final flying surfaces are the all-moving fins, which have a fixed portion glued to the fuselage, through which the pin on the fin projects, securing it in the polycap fitted at the beginning of the build. This should allow them to be removed for easy painting and decaling, and later offset if you feel the urge. Whilst most of the cockpit was built very early in the build, it is missing some key components, one of which is the ejection seat. This is made from two halves of the chassis, adding three seat cushions and a flip-up pair of arm rests, with a detail insert under the base cushion to depict the pull handle. A flat cover is applied to the back of the seat, with scrap diagrams and colour call-outs helping with accurate painting of the assembly. You then have a choice of using the included pilot to crew your model, or fit the supplied PE seatbelts to the empty seat, using the scrap diagrams to assist you with shaping them before installation. The pilot figure has separate arms, a two-part helmeted head, and an oxygen hose, with another detailed painting guide with two views to the side, colour call-outs given in MENG colour and Gunze Acrysion codes. The pilot’s instrument panel is next, applying decals to the panel’s large screens and detail-painting the various buttons moulded into the part. The coaming is glued to the top of the panel, adding the HUD from two clear parts, one inserted into a styrene frame, painting the front pane a transparent green before installing the completed assembly in the front of the cockpit, remembering to detail paint the instrument cluster in the coaming edge. A pair of angle-of-attack probes are fitted to the sides of the nose at the same time, then you have another choice to make. Create the canopy from a simplified set of parts, or go for more detail that includes PE parts. The simple canopy has the det-cord to shatter the canopy before ejection moulded-in along with a couple of interior frames, which are recessed within the part, and can be painted with white or grey acrylic or other water-based paint, wiping the excess away before it has chance to dry, leaving the paint in the recesses to represent the cords. Both options use the same lower frame, which is prepared by fitting two side frames, a small triangular support at the rear, and demisting tubing at the windscreen end. If you are using the PE parts, there is a separate blank canopy, and it is suggested that you bend the PE det-cord and heater hoses before gluing them to the lower frame, fitting the canopy in place over it once they are painted. The simplified canopy with the cord moulded-in is similarly glued in place over the lower frame without the PE parts if you don’t fancy your chances wrangling them. Either completed canopy can be fitted to the cockpit in the open or closed position by selecting the appropriate opener strut, adding a two-pronged hinge part to the rear of the open option that slots into the front of the spine. The choices aren’t quite finished yet, as you can close the refuelling probe bay by fitting the door over the area, but if you wish to deploy the probe, it has a tapering ladder support and a different door part, inserting the rear of the probe into the bay and setting the correct angle courtesy of the support. It has a bright red section near the business end of the probe, which is best painted before installation. Speaking of ladders, which we kind-of were, there is a crew ladder included on the sprues, made from just two parts, one of which is well protected by a deep extension to the runner next to it, protecting the rungs moulded into that half of the assembly. This is latched over the lip of the cockpit on the port side, and you can leave it loose or glue it in place as you see fit. Markings There is just one scheme given on the rear pages of the instruction booklet, but a full set of tail-codes are included, so you can build any airframe in the low-viz grey cloud camouflage shown below: Decals are printed in China with good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. It includes many stripes around the weapon and gear bays, which are supplied as sensibly designed sections that should remove as much frustration as possible whilst applying them. Slime lights and various sensor dielectric panels are also included on the sheet, and on an addendum sheet (not pictured) that is barely the size of a postage stamp, a single “bunny-ears” decal numbered 25 is included, so be careful not to lose it. Conclusion This is a large aircraft, around the same size as the immense Mig-31, and MENG have done a good job of representing the detail. Most modellers could build it straight from the box thanks to what’s included, although some aftermarket is bound to come out soon. Very highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Kit - Meng Paint - Lacquer camo tones, W&N oils for all weathering effects. Decals - Kit Extras - Hasegawa AGM-84 Harpoon missiles. FA-18F Super Hornet VFA-2 'Bounty Hunters' USS Abraham Lincoln 2003/04 Other than the Harpoon missiles, what you see here is exactly what comes in the (very substantial) Meng box... and IMHO is one of the best 1:48 kits available today. Everything fits perfectly, I don't recall using anything more than a 'smear' of putty in any of the major construction (special mention to the design of the potentially problematic main undercarriage here as it's so precise that I was able to use the locators in the main gear bay as a jig to fully assemble the main units, then 'click' them out once the glue had set and paint/weather them off the kit which was a HUGE bonus). The overall detail is excellent - not perfect, but pretty close - the omission of the nav lights is quite noticeable for instance. Put it this way, every time during the build phase I was able to sit down with it, it was a hugely enjoyable experience, not once did it give me an 'eye roll' moment. And no, I'm not on Mengs' payroll, it really is that good. Lots of time put into the fading, spot-painting, weathering and generally dirtying-up of the paintwork - the basic tones are Mr. Color lacquers C307 & C308, from memory the (superb) Sidewinders are painted with good ol' Humbrol H127 to generate a greater contrast, and because I thought it looked quite cool ! - All of that fade and dirt was done with W&N oils and took a good few sessions, would love some feedback and thoughts from folks here, as I'm planning something similar for the Tamiya F-14 in the future. Not much else to say, so please feel free to ask any questions, make comments or criticisms. Cheers from a warm and sunny NZ. Ian.

Another one! After the TAKOM/Snowman Model AH-64D/E (link ) Meng Model is to release a 1/35th Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow kit - ref. QS-004 Sources: https://weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404830678314516765 http://moxingfans.com/new/news/2022/1031/10892.html V.P.

PLA ZTQ15 Light Tank (72-001) 1:72 MENG via Creative Models Ltd The Type 15 light tank was designed as a replacement to the previous generation of tanks that Chinese Army, Navy and Air Force used in high altitude areas where oxygen is limited, on soft ground where heavier vehicles would bog down, and in tight areas such as forests where the lack of mobility of larger, heavier vehicles would be an impediment. It was under development some time early in the new millennium, with prototypes seen during the 2010s, and final acknowledgement by the PLA of it entering service in 2018, by which time it had been in service in growing numbers for two years. It carries a 105mm rifled gun that can fire the usual range of munitions (including NATO rounds), plus Anti-Tank Guided Missiles that can be used to take out enemy tanks at ranges of three to five miles away under the right circumstances. It is armoured with a combined steel and composite hull, with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) blocks fitted to the front, sides and turret, and the option of adding slat armour where shaped-charge rockets such as RPGs are expected. It can also carry heavier ERA blocks for greater protection, but as with all things, more protection brings more weight, lower speed and a greater likelihood of bogging down. Unusually for an AFV, the Type 15 has an onboard oxygen generator that feeds additional air to both the crew and the engine to compensate for the reduced power output by the 1,000hp diesel engine at higher altitudes, the oxygen permitting the crew to keep their wits about them in circumstances that could otherwise leave them confused and listless due to lack of oxygen in their bloodstreams. The coaxial machine gun in the mantlet is a relatively lightweight 5.8mm, but there is a 12.7mm remote controlled gun station on the turret roof that is mounted side-by-side with a 35mm automatic grenade launcher. On the similar but different overseas variant, the VT-5, there are significant differences to the shape of the forward hull, and the driver’s hatch is mounted centrally, whereas the Type 15 has the driver on the left side of the glacis plate. The systems of the tank are modern, offering full stabilisation of the main gun, which is fed from the bustle-mounted ammo store by an auto-loader that permitted the crew to be reduced to three, and in the event of a direct hit, the ammunition storage is designed to blow outward to protect the crew, and increase the survivability of the vehicle, something the Russian tank designers could take note of. Its drivetrain is similarly modern, using hydro-mechanical transmission, and hydropneumatic suspension to smooth the ride, while the sensor package allows the gunner and commander to share the aiming and firing of the main gun, as well as detecting incoming infrared signals, triggering the launch of smoke grenades to disperse the signal and warn the crew to move their vehicle. Because of its comparatively light-weight, it can be air-transported in pairs, and can be delivered to its intended destination by palletised air-drop, although the crew would probably need a change of underwear once they landed. It is likely to be in service with the Chinese military for some considerable time, increasing its capabilities with in-service updates as time goes by. The Kit This is the first tooling from MENG’s new 1:72 armour line, and it arrives in a figure-sized end-opening box in MENG’s usual satin finish, with an attractive painting of the subject matter on the front, and painting instructions on the rear. Inside the box are four sprues plus the upper hull and turret in light grey styrene, and a concertina-fold instruction booklet in black and white. There are no decals, so you will need to mask or hand-paint the digital camouflage patches that are dotted around the hull and turret, but if you paint the green first and mask it, that shouldn't be an onerous task. Detail is good throughout, with fine raised and recessed detail across all exterior surfaces, extending to the underside, with deeply recessed link-and-length track links, and a well-represented blast-bag on the main gun. Construction begins with the running gear, building twelve pairs of road wheels, two pairs each of drive sprockets and idler wheels, the former made from four parts each. The lower hull is assembled around the floor, adding the sides and the lower glacis plate to the front, then installing the drive sprockets at the rear, and a line of three return rollers to each side of the hull. Six pairs of road wheels and the idler wheels are slid over the stub axles, adding towing shackles to the glacis, which then leads to installing the tracks. A straight length is fitted to the return run, gluing the lower run with diagonal ends, then completing the band with curved sets of three links per end, one for each side of the vehicle. The rear bulkhead with a pair of exhausts and towing shackles is fixed to the back of the hull, after which the upper hull can be mated to the lower, adding the driver’s hatch at the front on the shallow slope of the glacis plate. At the rear, two fuel drums are made up from halves, and are fitted to the bulkhead along with an unditching beam that has wooden bark texture moulded into it along with the two straps that hold it to the vehicle. Side skirts are fitted to both sides as single parts, covering the top track run, which could probably be left off to save yourself some work. The turret assembly is built from top and bottom halves, inserting a sensor into the front, and adding the commander’s cupola over his hatch cut-out, plus a pair of sensors to the forward corners. The rear panel to the bustle is separate, and is fitted along with the two sighting boxes, rear sensors on the corners, the mantlet with sensor box on top, and the two crew hatches. Grenade launchers are fitted as three pairs on the sides of the bustle, and the single-part main gun is inserted into the hole in the mantlet, fixing a pair of sensor masts, aerial bases, additional detail parts to the roof, then building up the co-mounted 12.7mm machine gun and grenade launcher into the remote station from three parts, inserting its mounting peg into a hole in the centre of the roof, and adding a tubular part across the rear of the bustle. The completed turret can then be mated with the hull, twisting the bayonet fitting to lock it into place. Markings There is just one option detailed on the rear of the box, which is all-over sand with green or brown digital camouflage scattered over the surface. There are no decals, so none of the usual concerns over registration, sharpness etc. Conclusion 1:72 AFV modellers should welcome this new range with open arms, as they are well-detailed and yet still relatively simple to build, and what’s more, they don’t stress the purse-strings unduly. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Audi R8 LMS GT3 2019 (CS-006) 1:24 MENG via Creative Models Ltd The Audi R8 is a two-seat sport car from German auto-manufacturing giant VAG, and was introduced in 2007, based on their R8 Quattro concept car, with the same four-wheel drive platform that was heavily based upon the Lamborghini Gallardo initially, then the Huracán for the second generation, with a predominantly aluminium space frame beneath the sleek body panels, reusing the R8 Le Mans Prototype name on a vastly different looking vehicle. A soft-top Spyder was introduced in 2011 giving purchasers the wind-in-your-hair feeling at high speeds, while it was introduced into motorsport just after launch where it fared extremely well, looking fast even when parked. The motorsport-tuned offering was race-prepped on delivery, and cost roughly 2.5 times the street car, but there’s a lot included for the money, driven by a V10 5.2 litre engine outputting over 500hp through all four wheels. Its power, agility and reliability made it a popular purchase for GT racing teams, and a great deal of success followed over the coming years. In 2011 the LMS Ultra was launched, incorporating all the updates over the preceding years along with a wider bodykit that gave it a better aerodynamic performance, plus enhanced software that made gear transitions faster and smoother, widening the torque available to the driver across the range. The R8 moved to the second generation in 2015, with the race-spec option following swiftly behind, incorporating a substantial price rise to almost 440 EUR and a power output nearing 600hp. The intention of the revised Evo was to improve the driver experience to satisfy the wide range of driver types that were behind the wheel of these cars due to its popularity, although the price is still an impediment to anyone of normal means, so we can’t all pick one up to go racing, more’s the pity. The Evo II arrived in 2021 with another price rise, more improvements to aerodynamics, engine and transmission reliability, torque output and heat dissipation, leading to a further improvement in driving experience for the racers. Production was intended to stop in 2023 but was delayed due to the ongoing demand for the type, so it should be seen for some years yet on the track, as even though Audi Motorsport are withdrawing from GT3 racing along with several other major manufacturers, they have agreed to provide tech. support and spares to customers until at least 2032. The Kit This is a new tooling from MENG that is a tribute to the career of this impressive sports car, which is evident by the effort that has clearly gone into creating this model and its packaging. The kit arrives in one of their usual satin-finished boxes with stylised painting of the subject on the front of the top-opening box. Inside are six sprues and a bodyshell in off-white styrene, four flexible black tyres in two sizes, a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) metal with a dark grey coating, a sheet of sticky mirrored labels for the wing and rear-view mirrors, a sheet of black self-adhesive logos, a sheet of fabric-like material with the seatbelts pre-cut, four black poly-caps, pre-weeded masks for the windows on a clear backing sheet, large decal sheet, instruction booklet printed in colour with profiles on the rear pages, an informative booklet detailing the history of the R8 in four languages, which spans over two sides in English, with comparable space in the other languages, which are probably Japanese, Chinese and Russian or other Cyrillic language at a guess. Detail is superb. It’s a MENG kit after all. The quality of the mouldings is first-class and the accessories that come with the kit should mean that most modellers won’t have to expend more on aftermarket, although some are bound to anyway. Construction begins with the flat floor pan, which has a splitter added to the front, and the initial suspension arms in the space where the wheel arches will be. Some detail painting is required along the way, the shades called out in MENG/AK and Acrysion codes, which extends throughout the process. Inner arches are fitted over the front suspension, slotting struts and combining hubs to brake disks with moulded-in callipers, trapping a poly-cap in each one. The hubs are joined by inserting a steering linkage through the back of the arch and clipping it to the arm at the leading edges of the hubs without glue so that the wheels can remain steerable. The lower rear arches are similarly inserted, adding a latch-part for the bodyshell at the rear. Things move to the interior next, making up the seatbelts using the pre-cut material from the sheet mentioned earlier. The various pieces are threaded through the belt furniture to create five-point racing belts, all of which slip through slots into the rear, gluing the ends out of sight. The interior is bereft of any creature comforts in order to save weight, and is instead detailed with the absolute bare necessities for the driver’s use and safety. It starts with the pedal box and fire extinguisher, adding three boxes into the passenger side on the right, another cylinder behind the driver’s seat, and a custom centre console that has a colourful instrument panel decal applied after painting. The steering wheel of a modern racing car is a complex piece of equipment that is covered in buttons, plus an Audi logo, mated to a two-part steering column that is fitted under the dash with a small instrument panel instead of the usual binnacle, with a tubular vent extension directed at the driver to keep him cool. The entire dash is made from carbon fibre, which is replicated here by six shaped decals with carbon weave incorporated, which will need careful application and plenty of decal setting solution to ensure they conform to the shape of the dash. The completed assembly is fitted on a pair of turrets at the front of the interior, then the now complete interior is placed in the floor pan using the same technique. Whilst this model might look like a kerbside kit, the mid-mounted V10 engine is visible through the rear window, and is supplied as part of the kit, all the way down to the sump. The V-shaped block is made from top and bottom halves, adding cylinder heads to the top of each bank, painting them red, and the plugs black. An end cap is added to the transmission with drive-shafts exiting each side, and detail parts are dotted around the block to add interest. Two exhaust manifolds are made from separate halves, adding the exhaust tips at the rear, and fitting them under the cylinder banks on depressions in the surface. The air intake pathway is built from a side-by-side trunking that has a tube laid crossways and two boxes under it, adding it to the top of the engine once completed, installing the completed engine into position in the aft of the floor pan. Like all racing cars, a substantial roll-cage is found inside the car, made from just three parts initially, the aft section with a box-section profile, while the frame in the cab is tubular. It is painted and then installed on the floor, stretching back past the engine assembly to provide extra protection from behind, in the hope that the driver doesn’t get too close to the power plant in the event of a crash. A small bulkhead is made up from a styrene part with a clear upper portion, adding a two-part reservoir to the left side within the engine compartment, then the roof of the cage is made from another large part that is well-detailed, and mates with the rest of the cage to complete the driver’s protection. The rear suspension is created in a similar manner to the front, making up hubs that have a poly-cap in between them and the brake disk/calliper combination, slotting the pivots into holes in the swing-arms, and adding a suspension strut with gaiter in between the arms and an A-frame incorporated into the roll-over cage. The top of the inner arches are fitted to the top of the lower parts added earlier, then the wheels can be made from two pairs of well-moulded rim with spokes around the perimeter, slipping the correctly sized tyres over the front edge and butting them up to the lip at the rear of the rims. Each rim has a pin moulded into the centre rear that slides through the disk hub and into the poly-cap, allowing them to be fitted and removed during construction and painting, whilst letting them rotate freely. The bodyshell has the MENG logo and copyright details moulded into the interior roof in raised letters, plus a few ejector-pin marks in case you want to hide those with some filler and careful sanding. There are also a couple of sprue sections across the windscreen and rear window cut-outs, which should be nipped free and the sprue gates made good before proceeding. You should also decide on a colour to paint the interior, as only some parts have been picked out for painting black, while the main inner surfaces colours are left to you to decide from your references. The window glazing is supplied with masks to assist you with painting the surrounds black, which is the first task, and extends to the front, rear and side windows. A large recess is cut out of the bonnet for the cooling system, which has a deep ‘bath’ inserted that has a two-layer fan assembly inserted before painting and installation. The headlamp reflectors are painted chrome and are inserted into their cut-outs from within, adding another intake in the bumper, after painting it red and applying an R8 decal to the lip, fitting the rear-view mirror in the centre of the windscreen frame, then applying a chrome sticker to depict the mirror surface. The air-intakes for the brakes have their louvres applied to an insert that stretches across the front of the bumper, with another pair fitted into the fronts of the rear arches, the louvres painted red before installation, then two covers are fitted to each of the front corners, adding the headlamp glazing at the same time, plus two aerodynamic strakes on each corner. The aft light lenses are applied to the rear of the car after painting the reflectors chrome, fixing a conical lens in the space below on the right of the bumper. The doors are moulded separately from the bodyshell, and have separate hinge units applied to the A-pillars, and triple louvres added to the upper portion of the B-pillars, adding two decorative accent panels where the quarter-light would be and behind the door, plus two mesh grilles from the PE sheet in the door shut-lines on each side. The doors are made from inner and outer skins that hold the glazing between them, plus a rectangular pivot in the leading-edge, and a wing-mirror that slots into the skin of the door, which has a mirrored sticker inserted into the rear on each side. All this assumes you masked and painted the glazing in one sitting, but if you didn’t you should probably kick yourself about now. The completed doors clip into the hinges without glue, and can be opened and closed whenever you like, joining the bodyshell to the floor pan on the clips added earlier. The large mesh grille for the intake in the bumper is curved, and a jig is included on the sprues to assist with bending it to shape, but it is probably wise not to anneal it for fear of marring the slick black finish. Happily, the curve is gradual, so shouldn’t be an issue. Later variants of the R8 were fitted with a rear wing to add extra downforce, which in this case is made from two L-shaped supports for the separate wing, which has two end-caps attached after painting and decaling with a large Audi Sport logo, a scrap diagram showing the moulding overflow ‘pips’ that should be removed from the support frames. The rear windscreen is masked and framed with black paint, locating it in the styrene boot lid, which is lowered into position over the engine bay, taking care to align the slots with the wing supports that sprout out of the rear of the engine bay frame. Markings This is a special edition depicting the R8 LMS GT3 that competed in 2019, so the decals are specific to this vehicle. From the box you can build the following: Decals are printed in China, having good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. It includes carbon fibre-effect decals for the dash, instrument decals, and four dynamic dotted lines that decorate the sidewalls of the tyres, as well as the branding, red and black striping, plus those small self-adhesive Audi, V10 and R8 logo badges for the front, wing and rear of the vehicle, not to mention four Brembo logos for the brake callipers. Conclusion MENG create good car models, and this one is no exception, with high levels of detail from the box, plus many extras that would be considered aftermarket by many other manufacturers. It also helps that the R8 is a good-looking car in road-going or racing forms. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

M1A2 SEP Abrams Tusk II US Main Battle Tank (72-003) Meng via Creative Models Ltd The Abrams Main Battle Tank is the direct replacement to the M60, when it was realised that the venerable design was ill-suited to further modification to cope with emerging threats that were entering the battlespace. The new design entered limited service in 1980 and went on to become the main heavy tank in the Army and Marines branches of the American armed forces. It saw extensive action in the two Gulf Wars, where it fared extremely well against older Soviet designs with minimal damage inflicted in a tank-on-tank fight due to its composite armour and accuracy at extended range. It was developed further with the AIM programme, which upgraded the battle management systems and returned the vehicles to factory fresh condition. The A2 was improved again, giving the commander his own sighting system as well as other system changes. The SEP received additional changes to its armour and systems, with a remote weapons station added later. With the involvement of the Abrams in urban combat during the Afghanistan campaign, it became clear that the tank was vulnerable in close-quarters combat, where the top of the tank was open to attack from small arms fire, and RPGs could be used with relative safety of the firing team, who could pop up and disappear in between shots, giving the tank crews little indication of where the shot originated. The problems of IEDs buried under roads or in buildings also disabled several tanks in action, all of which led to the TUSK and improved TUSK II upgrade packages, which stands for Tank Urban Survival Kit. To counter IEDs a shallow V-shaped keel was added to the underside to deflect blast away from the hull, reactive armour blocks were added to the side skirts and turret, and bullet-resistant glass and metal cages were mounted around the crew hatches on the turret to provide protection for the crew during urban operations, or if they were called upon to use their weapons in combat. A combat telephone was also installed on the rear of the tank to allow better communication between accompanying troops and the tanks, as well as slat armour at the rear to protect the exhaust grilles of the gas turbine engine, the blast from which was directed upwards by a deflector panel that could be attached to the grille to avoid cooking the troops behind. The TUSK II kit improved on the original TUSK with shaped charges incorporated into the ERA blocks on the sides of the tank, and additional shields for the crew when exposed. Both kits were field-installable, which reduced the cost and time the vehicles spent out of commission. The A3 variant is intended to incorporate many weight-saving changes, such as internal fibre-optic data transmission, lightness of armour and gun, amongst many other improvements. This is still distant and far from guaranteed, given the changes already seen in planning that have included a totally new platform, so it looks like the A2 will be around for some time yet, possibly until 2050 while the politicians make up their minds. The Kit This is a brand-new tooling from Meng from their new 1:72 scale AFV range, and it arrives in a sturdy end-opening box that should be as hard to crush as any top-opener. Attractive box art is found on top, while painting details are on the back of the box, and inside are six sprues of light grey styrene, a clear sprue, a small decal sheet, and a black and white instruction booklet in portrait A5, with a sprue diagram on the rear page. Detail is good, with link-and-length tracks, separate ERA blocks, raised weld-lines, and detailed road wheels that are moulded individually, rather than in a long run as with earlier kits from other manufacturers. In terms of detail, this could well become the de facto standard in this scale, based on what we have seen. Construction begins with sixteen paired road wheels and two drive sprockets, all of which are made from two halves, and are set to one side while the lower hull is made up from floor and two side panels that slot into the back of the suspension mounts moulded into the floor for a strong bond. The swing arms are moulded into the floor, save for the two forward wheel stations, which are linked together by a damper, and are formed from a separate part that is slotted into holes in the side walls along with two return rollers per side. The TUSK keel, front idler wheel and rear drive sprocket are then installed so that the tracks can be made up, built from two long runs top and bottom, two diagonal lengths under the ends, and a curved section of three links to fit around the ends of the road wheels. The Abrams doesn’t have much in the way of sag in the top track run, but these won’t be seen, so it’s a little accuracy hidden away, and it’s possible the top run could be omitted to save modelling time if you feel the urge. The upper hull has headlight clusters and the driver’s hatch fitted before the lower hull it given a rear bulkhead, which also has light clusters moulded into the rear in cylindrical projections, adding a field telephone box, towing hook and eye, plus the afore mentioned blast deflector for the hot exhaust. The two hull halves can then be mated, and the side-skirts installed, followed by the curved ERA panels over the top, locating them on four lugs in the surface of the skirts. The majority of the turret is moulded as a single part, with just the rear bulkhead a separate part with the crosswind sensor pole moulded-in, adding the gunner’s hatch, the binocular FLIR box on top with optional open doors to display the clear lenses, a spare ammo box for the pintle-mounted crew weapons, and the drum-shaped gunner’s primary sight to the roof. The gun is moulded as one part with the fume extractor hump and a separate muzzle with velocity sensor, after which it is plugged into the mantlet, with coax machine gun moulded-in, held in position by gluing the top and bottom turret halves together, taking care to keep the glue away from the pivots. Each side of the turret has a set of stowage boxes with IFF placards moulded-in, topped with a lid and separate ammo can, fitted in place with the smoke discharger packages at the front on their mounts. Armour plates and ERA blocks are applied over the front portions on both sides, leaving the IFF boards exposed, and installing the top of the mantlet on a tab, again being careful with the glue. The aircon unit is fixed to the floor of the stowage area at the rear of the turret, mounting the tubular frame, IED disruptor aerials, another tubular rack for more storage that includes a couple of jerry cans, and a separate IFF board hung on the rear. Crew protection is begun by installing a protective shroud around the left of the gunner’s hatch, creating the machine gun emplacement on a ring around which the heavily modified LMG is rotated, protected at the sides by two window panels that have clear panes in the centre, and for once the thickness of the glazing is suitable for the scale. A third glass panel is fitted to the right, with another without a window on the left, which usually faces the commander’s more complex cupola. An eight-block vision-block ring is inserted from under the cupola, which has a two-part hatch inserted into the centre, then the M2 .50cal with ammo box is slipped through the front splinter guard, which has two clear panes installed, adding a three-facet fixed set with individual windows on the right, and another two-part pair of windowed panels on the left, all of which fit into the top of the cupola on slots. As if there weren’t enough guns available, the remote .50cal mount over the mantlet is attached with an ammo box on a separate bracket. To finish the build, the turret is lowered onto the hull and twisted into position, locking on a pair of bayonet lugs moulded into the turret ring that correspond with notches in the hull ring. Markings There is only one decal option supplied in this boxing, the details of which are found on the rear of the box. It’s a desert vehicle from Iraq, painted a desert tan. From the box you can build the following: The decals are printed in China, and beyond that we don’t have any more information. Under magnification they are a little hazy, but once applied they should look fine to the Mk.1 eyeball, especially after a little weathering to the finished model. Don’t let it put you off, as everything looks worse under 3x magnification. Conclusion A well-detailed new tooling of the almost ubiquitous Abrams in smaller scale, which should put some of the older tools out to grass, and allow modellers to build a more detailed, modern US MBT out of the box, and at a pretty reasonable price in our inflation-soaked world. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of