Scale Aircraft Modelling 06/2009

FREIGHTDOG'S LATEST full kit, to be sold under the Silver Cloud label, is the Hawker Siddeley P. 1154, cancelled tragically despite representing Britain's greatest possibility of a successful export supersonic fighter. The kit is full resin, mastered and moulded by Anigrand in China before packing with decals and instructions here in the UK. There are 29 resin parts in the kit, including a clear resin cockpit transparency. All the parts in my sample were well moulded, although there were a few bubbles here and there. I wonder if Anigrand are using some sort of injection moulding technique, since many of the smaller parts are linked together by a sort of 'sprue'. The resin used is quite brittle, so care is needed with cleanup, but none of the mould gates are over large. Certainly no saws or motor tools will be needed to clean up the parts. With so few parts, you might expect construction to be pretty easy, and the good new is that it is! With proper cleanup, I found that all of the parts fitted extremely well. Minimal amounts of filling were required to make good any of the joints, and very few problems presented themselves throughout the entire build.

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Model Airplane News 06/2013

For the upcoming 25th Annual Top Gun Scale Invitational, Model Airplane News is once again the primary media sponsor. Held at Frank Tiano's Paradise Field RC flying facility in Lakeland, FL, this year's event is a full five days and will be from May 1 through May 5. As we do every year, we help to heat up the excitement with plane and pilot previews from contestants planning to compete for the title of Mr. Top Gun. Who wouldn't like a sneak peek of some of the best scale RC airplanes and pilots in the country? We will also feature some of these great scale masterpieces at ModelAir-planeNews.com/TG2013 with added bonus photos and details not included here. You'll be able to see these amazing planes and learn some of the back stories that motivate the competitors to build and compete with their chosen aircraft. So, for now, here are some of the pilots and their planes, who have shared their project planes with us!

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Steel Masters No.111

A 25 kilomètres des lignes soviétiques, à l'est de Kharkov que défend le corps blindé SS du général Hausser, le Kampfgruppe Peiper, dont il fait partie, a pour mission d'aller chercher les hommes de la 320. Infanterie Division qui sont presque encerclés par les Soviétiques et de ramener les 1 500 blessés. A cet instant, pendant que ses hommes reviennent au Sd.Kfz 251, l'inspection terminée, le lieutenant voit arriver un étrange cavalier. C'est un agent de liaison de la 320 Inf. Div. qui vient à sa rencontre. Aussitôt celui-ci l'informe du dernier mouvement des troupes ennemies. Cette scène, imaginaire mais tout à fait plausible, permet de mettre côte à côte un cavalier et un semi-chenillé devant une isba enneigée, lors de la formidable poussée soviétique depuis l'encerclement de Stalingrad de novembre 1942.

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Scale Aircraft Modelling 02/2010

SWORD HAVE thankfully stepped forward and provided us with modern toolings of 1:72nd scale F-80's, producing versions of the P-80C and RF-80A. Both kits are identical apart from a clear moulded nose section for the RF-80. Some excellent resin parts are included for the seat, the airbrake bays, undercarriage bays, gunsight or camera controls, along with the nose leg lights. The main injection moulded parts boast neat and highly refined surface detail. One small note is that the sprue attachments are positioned in some awkward spots and are quite large, which requires some careful removal to avoid damaging them. Most of the parts require some cleaning up of seams and flash, however this is not a complex task at all. There are a couple of optional variations provided in the kits, comprising two different styles of nose wheels (spoked and scalloped), and two types of wingtip tanks, the 'Standard' 165 gallon type, or the 'Misawa' 265 gallon option. Two colour options are provided with each kit, the P-80C having overall Natural Metal options of 'Kansas Tornado' trimmed with blue, and 'Evil Eye Fleagle' trimmed in red (my chosen scheme). In addition, both of these schemes have minor differences available for modelling early or late schemes of said aircraft.

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