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MikroMir is to release a 1/72nd de Havilland DH.108 Swallow kit - ref. 72-022 Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4613521392058894&id=1416295571781508&m_entstream_source=feed_mobile Sprues V.P.

Kovozávody Prostějov is to release in 2020 1/72nd Sopwith Swallow & Scooter kits Source: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235010228-kpaz-central-discussion-questions-answers/&do=findComment&comment=3544775 V.P.

My next build, as chosen by my 7 year old son is Revell's 1:72 Ki-61 Hien "Tony." This aircraft was one of the few Japanese fighters in WWII to have an inline engine, and was used as a fighter bomber. Here come the compulsory box photo's.... So the kit is relatively simple, and contains a set of instructions, and small decal sheet. I plan to airbrush some of the decals (the white stripe on the fuselage, red stripe on the tail etc). There are two small sprues with fuselage and other parts, top and bottom wing sections and a clear canopy. The sprues are a little flashy, and there are alot of raised rivet style details on the fuselage and wings😬. Aside from the airbrushing, this will be an out of the box build, with the small addition of a stand as I plan to build Tony inflight. Time to crack on with the build, that's all for now.

Akatombo Works is to release a 1/72nd de Havilland DH.108 Swallow resin kit. Source: http://akatombo.world.coocan.jp/ V.P.

Me.262A-1a/U1 1:48 Hobby Boss The Schwalbe had the distinction of being the first jet engine fighter to see active service, and was respected by the Allies due to its speed and manoeuvrability, care of the advanced axial-flow engines that burned brightly, but not for very long. It came too late with too few airframes entering service due to delays with the engines, and the German high-command's insistence that every aircraft should have a myriad of variants sporting different configurations that brought with them further delays and confusion. The A-1a/U1 was the heavy armament Zerstörer or destroyer, with six cannon mounted in the nose, two of which were 20mm MG151s, two more 30mm MK.103, and the final two 30mm MK.108. Only a single prototype was constructed before war's end, but had it seen service it would have packed a phenomenal punch, especially as the armament was all concentrated in the nose, thanks to some careful arrangement of components, and a little additional fairing. The Kit If you've seen any of the other Hobby Boss kits of the 262, or indeed any kit of the 262, there will be much that you recognise here, and on opening the box you will see that there is again a highly modular configuration of the sprues to extract the maximum permutations from the toolings. Good, says I, as you just can't have too many Swallows IMHO! There are two sprues containing fuselage halves, three larger sprues, and seven smaller sprues in a medium grey styrene, two small clear sprues, a white metal nose weight, and a medium sized decal sheet. The instructions are A4 portrait in black and white on plain paper, stapled into a booklet, while the painting and decaling instructions are printed on one side of a piece of glossy paper. It was one prototype airframe, or one of three if you believe some sources over others, so wore limited schemes. One thing I noticed about the boxart is that it doesn't represent the kit in the box, which has two protruding cannon and two more faired in cannon bulges in the nose. The boxart has faired over upper troughs, and a pair of bomb carriers under the nose, none of which is in the box. Not to worry though… the stuff in the box is correct for the nomenclature. Construction begins with the cockpit tub, which is well detailed and provided with instrument decals for the main panel, plus the side consoles, all of which have clear backgrounds so you don't have to match paint with the rest of the cockpit. The cannon bay is next, and again there is a lot of detail packed into this area, in the shape of six cannons and their ammo feeds. The larger 30mm cannons are fitted to the rear of the bay, which sits on top of the metal nose weight, which also forms the walls of the nose gear bay. The gear leg is shown fitted at this time, along with a retraction jack and bay door, and you can choose between a simple smooth tyre or a heavily treaded one to suit yourself. A quantity of internal parts of the aircraft, such as radio gear and other equipment are placed within the two fuselage halves, which can be seen through a small hatch in the side of the fuselage if you care to leave it open. The fuselage halves are painted RLM02 inside, then closed up around the cockpit and nose gear bays. The engines and wings are built up next, with the engine nacelles split vertically with single mouldings for the front and rear fairings, plus depictions of the front and rear faces of the Jumo 004 engines. The wings are full-width on the lower, and separate port and starboard on the upper, with some main wheel bay detail added to the gap between them before the fuselage is added along with the engines, tail, separate rudder, and the cannon bay covers, which includes optional open panels and props that sit on a central brace. The nose cone has fairings moulded in for the 20mm cannons, and the larger 30mm cannons have barrel parts, the lower of which have perforated muzzle-brakes moulded onto them, although none of the barrels have hollow muzzles. It would be well worth getting a set of brass barrels for these, as they're somewhat a focal point of this variant of the 262. A three-part windscreen and canopy is added over the cockpit, with the windscreen including a small portion of the upper fuselage, making for a nicely faired in look to the screen once complete. Main construction finishes with the main gear legs, which have separate oleo-scissor links, retraction jacks and two bay doors each, with another opening into the centreline. Two cannon shell-chute panels are added to the underside of the nose, as is the remaining nose gear cover, and that's the aircraft finished. As a bonus, a set of Ruhrstahl Ru 344 X-4 wire-guided missiles are included in the box, taking up two of the small sprues, and covered with some protective wrap. Although eventually cancelled, the X-4 was destined to be carried by the 262 and Do.335, but problems with guidance and the pilot splitting his attention between flying his own aircraft and a missile some hundreds of metres distant led to its cancellation before it was ever carried by the Schwalbe. These are constructed by adding stabilising wings to the body, which already has two wings moulded in, and adding a tail section. The missile is then added to a two-part pylon that mounts on the wing via two holes drilled before the wings are closed up. A task to remember if you're planning on using them. Additionally, a pair of tubular RATO pods are also included, which fit close to the fuselage centreline, just aft of the main landing gear bays. Even the advanced Jumo engines were slow to spool up or down, so the additional thrust of a pair of rocket motors would be useful to get a heavily laden 262 off the ground quickly. Markings As already mentioned, there was only one prototype of this variant (depending on who you ask that could be three airframes), so your options are limited if you intend to stick to real-world scenarios. Hobby Boss have opted for a hypothetical scheme however, as some of the prototype schemes can be a bit samey, I suppose. From the box you can build: Einsatzkommando Schenk (E-51)3.,KG/51 'Eddleweiss', red 5. RLM82/83 spinter camo on the topsides, with faded and mottled sides, over an RLM76 underside. Red 5 on the front cowling, and bisected Swastikas on the tail. The decals are printed in-house, and include plenty of stencils and walkway decals, although the red dotted lines aren't used in the scheme above. Print quality is good, as is registration, but the whites of the various crosses appear a little translucent. Sourcing alternatives might be a wise idea once you've satisfied yourself of their quality. Conclusion Hobby Boss to a nice line in 262s at an attractive price, and this one is no exception, with perhaps the caveats of the scheme and decals to watch out for. Detail is good throughout, and it is well-engineered, with the built-in nose weight especially welcome. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

I picked up this at the weekend as a distraction from review builds and reviews, as it's ages since I've built anything just for my own pleasure. This is a Cyber Hobby Orange boxing of the Dragon (Trimaster?) kit of the proposed Bomber Destroyer that was fitted with a 50mm Bordkanone 5 in the nose. Only two prototypes were finished before the end of hostilities, and the box top artwork shows a drab RLM 81 with RLM82 spinter pattern on the wings, over RLM76. That late in the war, I'd have thought that a bare metal finish under the wings would be more likely, but what do I know? I'm in the market for a more interesting colour scheme, as the 262 is one of my favourite looking of the early jets. Putting a big fat cannon on the front of it just appeals to my sense of "wrong", so I treated it to one of Master's excellent turned brass and aluminium examples off eBay. I also had a cheapo Zoom! set of Eduard PE that was meant for a nachtjager, so I pressed the front half of that into service. I also killed two birds with one cannon shell and built up a set of the new Eduard "fabric" seatbelts, which took a while, but paid off. It allowed me to write the review with more conviction into the bargain, which is nice The cockpit of this ageing kit is a little rough and not very ready. The tub is nothing more than a section of tube with front and rear bulkheads built in, and some very sketchy detail moulded in. There were tooling marks and ejector pin marks all over the show, and the bases for the side consoles were a bit narrow, so I skinned those with some 0.1mm styrene sheet patterned from a masking tape template. The floor was also given a little extra care & attention, plus a new cross-board in front of the rudder pedals, which were replaced with some early LionRoar examples from the stash. Some of the detail was removed to accomodate the PE, which was pre-painted a not especially convincing colour. Once I'd painted the cockpit I touched in the grey with my shade, so it blends in better (I think?). I also added some lead wire to the rear of the instruments, which has been largely a waste of time and effort, after seeing the part in place I squished the control column's grip and have carved a new one from styrene rod, which is sitting beside me now waiting for the glue to cure, after which it will be painted up... again The nose gear bay had some tricky looking ejector pin marks, so those were filled with punched styrene circles and sanded flush (enough) before being painted. The kit includes a couple of PE sheets in some tough ferric blend of metal that really doesn't like to be cut or bent. Curiously enough, most of that is used in constructing the main gear bay, so that was built up after some seriously aggressive clean-up of the styrene parts, which were 'orrible. They were glued in the lower wing, primed, painted, varnished and washed, then matted down. I also built up the nacelles for the engines, electing not to use the extra sprues of Jumo engines for the stripped down option that's included with the kit along with a couple of mechanics and a stepped platform. The fit of these parts wasn't the best, but it's nothing that some CA and sanding sticks can't sort out, although some minor rescribing looks to be on the cards. These are currently setting up with CA in the joints, waiting for me to create a haze of styrene dusk at some point in the near future. I'm considering riveting the entire airframe once I've built up the fuselage, as there's not a massive amount of surface detail on the kit, as it's quite an old one. It's also got some horrible rubbery tyres and quite nice styrene hubs, which I'm trying not to use, but I'm also trying not to spend much money on it, as it's an old kit. If anyone's got any good ones that they have no need for, I'd be happy to negotiate their release I've added a few tabs to strengthen the obvious underside seams of the fuselage, and the wing joints, but these are going to need some adjustment, as the wall thickness is extremely variable all over the kit due to the old skool techniques used for tooling back then. Enough waffle - here's a pic of everything sat together. Looking forward, I think I've still got a lot of work to do, as the inspection panel covering the cannon breech fits where it touches. I think the guy that tooled the part was told there was a kit being tooled, but not about the dimensions. The landing gear could be interesting, but I'm sure I'll manage. Then there's the colour scheme - I'd prefer not to do the kit scheme, so if anyone's got any ideas, I'm all ears I guess it would have been easier to just buy the newer Hobby Boss kit, but this was just staring at me from the shelf, looking all forlorn with its partially crushed box and simple artwork. "buy me a cannon" it said, and I did. I'm impressionable like that

Free Shipping - The Messerschmitt Me.262 - A guide to the Luftwaffe's First Jet Fighter Valiant Wings Publishing Ltd Valiant Wings are offering free shipping on their first book, The Messerschmitt Me 262-A Guide To The Luftwaffe's First Jet Fighter, by well known author and editor Richard A Franks. it's a whopping 116 pages, with colour profiles by Richard Caruana and illustrations by Jacek Jackiewicz. Initially published in November 2010 it retails at £17.95 per copy, and having had a flick through our review copy, it looks to be worth every penny. The offer is valid until 31st January 2013 unless the Mayans were right... and then none of us will care when it ends! Watch out for reviews of this and other titles just as soon as I've had time to read through them Mike.