I picked up a few cans of this from Graham at Relish Models after the white and black versions were released recently. Now I've used them all on my Bf. 109F recently, I thought I'd venture an opinion on them.

This is an airbrush ready primer, which means it's a non-starter if you don't possess an airbrush. With that caveat out of the way, I can say with hand on heart that this is the best primer I have ever used, and I've used quite a few. Nothing beats Mr Surfacer in a can for convenience, but when you're priming your model prior to painting, this is by far and above the best I've used.

Like Alclad's range of metallic, this is a lacquer based primer, and cellulose thinners can be used to remove the residue from your airbrush. In use, it is a very thin solution, and goes onto your model almost like a translucent color initially. The trick is to keep your airbrush moving and build up coverage with a few passes. If the primer is allowed to pool on your model, the lacquer will attack the plastic, so keep moving. Also, don't be tempted to stand back and spray from a distance - keep the brush quite close to your work, and you'll minimise any gritty patches where the paint has partially dried before hitting the model. I find about 2" should suffice, and usually spray at around 15psi/1 bar.

The finish achieved is velvet smooth, and dry almost immediately, so handling one part of your model while you spray another shouldn't be an issue unless you spray it on too wet. The primer itself is tough, and resilient to lifting, even if masking is left on for ages. It also provides a very good surface onto which you can paint. I use acrylics almost exclusively for the final finish of a model, and I rarely have any issues if I've used Alclad Primer. The white primer is pigment dense, and can easily cover black over light grey without building up a thick layer, and the particles are small enough for it to actually be used as a white topcoat.

Because you have to build up the primer in layers, you do go through a couple of cupfuls on a 1:48 fighter aircraft for example, but the cans are large, holding 120ml each. It's also made in the UK, which is nice and makes a pleasant change in this day & age. Each can retails at about £5.35, but Graham pops them out for £4.75 at present, which represents quite a good value per millilitre.

Review sample courtesy of Graham at

The Seaking has been in service with the UK Military and Rescue services in various guises for many years now, and the major parts of this kit dates back from at least 30 years ago, as I remember building the white Apollo crew capsule recovery version with working winch when I was a young boy.

In order to update it to these versions however, Airfix have tooled a new sprue that contains the parts for the AEW version, which debuted in 1982 to fill the Airborne Early Warning (AEW) role.

Inside the bright red box you get four sprues of original tooling plus 3 spruelets containing the fuselage halves and floor, plus one sprue of new parts, all in the same light grey plastic we've come to expect from Airfix. The package is completed by a clear sprue, instructions, full-color painting guide and a nice looking sheet of decals.

The old sprues will be familiar to a lot of modellers, and they are sadly showing their age in some places. The spine radome part and the cowling around the engine intakes have a rough texture on my review copy, which will need some smoothing down before installation, as they won't be hidden under a coat of paint.









Flash is evident in moderate amounts on most of the older sprues too, and some of the detail on the fuselage halves are a little indistinct and uneven, which I suspect is due to mould wear. This could well be explained away by the wear on these old airframes however, although a few panel lines near the rotor head could do with some work in my opinion. The flash of course is only a minor irritation, and can soon be removed by judicious use of a sanding stick and scalpel. Clear parts are of good quality however, again with a little light flash around the edges that will need sanding off to ensure good fit.

The new parts are a complete step change, and are crisp with sharp definition. As well as the large inflatable radome, which is supplied to model it ready inflated, there are various sensor fits around the airframe, and parts to make up the filter box on the front of the engine intakes. These parts are well documented in the instructions, so fitting should be easy.

Happily, the five-bladed main rotor has stood the test of time well, as has the tail rotor, so little cleanup will be necessary here - just remember to choose the correct tail rotor, as the Westland Sea King rotates in the opposite direction to the Sikorsky model. Detail on the sponsons is also reasonable, and the basics of a cockpit are provided in the kit with a decal for the main instrument panel. Anyone wanting a little more detail will need to break out the scratch building tools, but that is only to be expected with a kit of this age.

The decal sheet is all new and in perfect register, allowing you to model one of the following airframes:

• Sea King ASaC.7 - B Flight No. 849 NAS, RNAS Culdrose, July 2007
• Sea King AEW.2 - A Flight 849 NAS HMS Illustrious, 1988

Conclusion
The basic kit is aged, but this shouldn't stop the patient modeller from producing an impressive replica of this iconic rotary wing aircraft, although a little work will be needed to clean up some of the parts due to the age of the moulds. The modeller should note that when on the ground and powered down, the inflatable radome is stowed deflated, so you will need to either source an aftermarket item, or build one up yourself if you want to add a little extra realism to your model.

Review sample courtesy of

 
The Trafalgar class, or T Class as it is often known is Great Britain's Nuclear Powered Attack Subs, which are sadly coming to the end of their working lives due to their constant stress/unstress cycle when submerging and surfacing.  Drawdown of the fleet is being done slowly, and at this time Trafalgar is being scrapped, and HMS Turbulent is soon to follow in 2011.
 
You can find a bit more out about this interesting and important sub on Wikipedia simply by searching "Trafalgar Class Submarine", so I won't reproduce it here.
 
The kit arrives in the usual red box, with a fetching photo of one of the class on the front, showing off the patchwork of anechoic tiles that are applied to the outer hull to absorb sonar and radar emissions and make the boat harder to track by the enemy.
 
Inside are two sprues of light grey styrene, and instruction booklet, full color painting guide, and a small set of decals that gives you name plate decals for every boat in the fleet in a rather striking silver.
 
From the box you can model every one of the class, but you should do your research carefully, as various lumps and bumps were applied depending on the mission each boat did during its career.  There is also the option of a traditional screw or propulsor, again, depending on which boat you are modelling - HMS Trafalgar was first to class and was the only one commissioned with a screw.
 
The parts count is low at 41 parts, as subs are simple models by definition.  The main components are on the larger sprue, and consist of a one piece upper hull for the waterline modeller,although more work is required to bring the kit to the correct draft as she needs to sit lower in the water and a two piece lower hull if you wish to model the full hull on the provided stand.


 
The sail, fins, various antennae and masts are on the smaller sprue, together with the alternative parts for the screw/propulsor, and the large stand.  The separate top of the sail gives you a choice of portraying the crew station, the conning tower if you like, open and if you're a brave modeller, you could add a few crew figures to give your model a better sense of scale.
 


The parts are nicely moulded, construction should be straightforward, and there are no real caveats to the build, other than the painting of the outer hull, which Airfix would have you complete in matt black.  Whilst this is the "stock" color of the tiles, the majority of them turn to various shades of dark grey pretty quickly, depending on the water conditions of their deployments, and just like the Space Shuttle, tiles occasionally fall off during operations, and these areas can usually be seen as rust colored patches.
 
Overall, the painting of the model would probably take you a lot longer than the build, and making an accurate impression of the paintwork would tax your masking skills, and probably your patience!  I understand from Rowan at Pheon Models that they are currently looking into the possibility of releasing a decal sheet to help in this regard, but please don't hold your breath, as it may not in the end be feasible.
 
The decal sheet is small due to the nature of the model, but includes name plates, depth indicators and red markings, plus a decal to portray the front sensor array.  Markings are provided for the full class, which includes:

• HMS Trafalgar (Jolley Boat, first to class, beta testing on a large scale)
• HMS Trenchant
• HMS Turbulent
• HMS Torbay
• HMS Talent
• HMS Tireless
• HMS Triumph

Those of you with a penchant for the unusual could always try to replicate the experimental Mediterranean disruptive scheme that HMS Trenchant wore in 1999, which consisted of blocky patches of medium grey, light grey, sky blue and black applied over the upper surfaces, somewhat akin to the Berlin Brigade pattern on the old Chieftain tank.
 
The scheme was removed after trials however, as it was deemed to be ineffective at hiding the subs in the relatively shallow waters of the Med, so Trenchant was taken back to her original scheme, and no other boats wore it.
 
Conclusion
As Airfix's first foray into submarine kits, it's a good start, and it's also nice to see that they have recognised that a lot of ship modellers like 1:350 scale.  It is a simple kit to build, and the modeller can spend as much or as little time getting the hull color right, and still end up with an effective looking model.
 
You can see an excellent build by the lovely Dan Daddow (Dads203) here on the forums.
 
Review sample courtesy of

The Boeing 727, is a three engine airliner designed by Boeing to bring jet travel to the masses, it was designed to operate from short runways with a complex system of flaps. The 727 has 3 engines, all on the back of the aircraft. This Authentic Airliners set has both side engines, and centre intake, and exhaust. Authentic Airliners offer both the round 200 centre intake, as well as the more Oval 100 centre intakes to alow the Airfix kit to be converted to a 727-100.
As I have used this set in a build I will look at the centre engine first.

Centre engine
Authentic Airliners offer both the 100, and 200 intakes. On the Left is the 100, with the 200 on the right.

The casting on all the parts are first class, with no bubbles, or miss casting any where. There are no instructions in the kit on where to cut, or fit the parts but it is very simple. I mesured the resin part, and cut the Airfix kit to the same size. The fuselage on the top has been cut, the bottom one is the un-cut kit part.

the resin fits like a glove. the height and width are spot on, and needed no filler to blend it in to the kit.

This part gives a nice deep and shaped intake with out needing to fill inside the intake as will be needed with the kit parts. the exhaust only needs the locating tab on the kit fuselage to be removed and then it gules on with no problems. inside the exhaust end there is a nice and fine fan, that looks great under a black wash after painting! Very hard to get a picture though!

Side engines


these engines are in 2 parts, with a moulding tab on the mating surface that will need careful cutting and sanding to give a good joint. I found that they needed some sanding so that they would sit against the Airfix kit snugly. The fan detail is again outstanding. A spot of paint, and a dark colour wash brings this to life, and is so much better than the kit parts. Again with the resin there is no need to try and sand the intakes. The surface detail is very fine, and the shape looks spot on.
Ive shown a few pics of the engines in place.


Conclusion
This is a very nice resin set, that is of a very high quality that you would expect from authentic Airliners. The 727-100 intake will be great for people that want to convert the Airfix kit. A recomended set, both for the conversion, and the extra detail. The build thread can be seen Here

Review sample courtesy of

The Messerschmitt 109 was destined to be one of the iconic fighters of WWII, so it is no surprise that it is a perennial favourite of the model making public, and it follows that there should be a large number of kits available in all scales.

The number of available kits is further widened by the fact that like the Spitfire it opposed, the basic airframe of the 109 was subject to many upgrades and improvements during its working life.

This kit represents three versions of the E or "Emil", which adapted through various sub-versions, the major ones being represented here with the exception of the E-7, although a drop-tank is supplied if the modeller wishes to adapt the provided kit accordingly.

The kit arrives in Airfix's now familiar colourful red box, and inside you find two sprues of light grey styrene, and a separately bagged clear sprue with lots of pieces of canopy to allow you to build the various sub-types. Instructions, a color painting guide and a compact set of decals completes the package.

There has already been a lot of talk on the various modelling forums of the accuracy of this kit, and from my readings the overall outlook seems positive, although it's difficult for any model company to completely satisfy everyone - especially on such well known subjects as the 109.

This new tool offers a wide variety of sub-types from the box, and Airfix are to be applauded for giving us the options. Of note here are 4 different windscreens, 2 canopy rears and two main canopy parts, plus drop tank, 250kg bomb and rack carrying 4 x 50kg bombs. Also included is a gun-port insert that fits to the wing leading edge to allow the modeller to portray 4 wing mounted machine guns or 2, depending on the mark they are building.





The cockpit is well detailed, although the bucket seat has some rather featureless belts moulded in. These can be covered by installing the supplied pilot figure, which despite looking like the cat that got the canary on the instructions, is actually suitably sombre on the sprues. Three spinner caps are included, although only 2 are alluded to in the instructions, and inside the cowling is a basic rendition of the DB601 engine moulded to the fuselage, with additional parts making up the engine bearers. The cowling can be left off to display this, but to the purist, a lot more work would be required to bring the engine up to scratch, so it is probably best left covered.

The wings have a 1 piece lower and 2-piece upper, and care should be exercised when joining this assembly to the fuselage, so that a good join is made. Various scoops, bumps and probes are added here and there, and all of the flying surfaces can be posed deployed, with handy hints at their maximum deflection to assist you in getting a realistic stance. Leading edge slats can be deployed or stowed just be removing the mounting tabs, and the tail stays are provided with substantial mounting points to give the assembly strength.

The landing gear is supplied as separate in-flight and parked sets, with the wheels in the latter having a nice restrained bulge to the bottom of the tyre. They're also one-piece with separate hubs, which makes clean-up and painting easier. Another diagram shows you the angle at which to set the gear to the perpendicular, which is another neat touch to help out the builder.

The canopy is crisp and clear, and the integral headrest is supplied for inside the opening part. Choose the parts carefully depending on which sub-type you are modelling, and either cut off or leave the small mounting tabs on the side of the opening part, depending on whether you're modelling it closed or open.



The decals are nicely printed, although the large black expanses of the balkenkreuz seem a little speckled with lighter dots, but this would hardly notice under a coat of varnish. From the sheet you can model one of three airframes as follows:

• Bf 109E-4/N Maj. Adolf Galland, France, 1940
• Bf 109E-3 Johann Boehm, France 1940 (First Luftwaffe fighter to be shot down over UK)
• Bf 109E-1/B France, 1940

A good number of stencils and walkway guides are supplied, as well as some stencils for the bombs and props, all of which help with realism.

Conclusion
This kit has been generally well received by the Luftwaffe experts, and should build into a nice replica out of the box with little trouble. Panel lines are crisp but on the heavy side, and detail is good, even on the basic engine moulded to the fuselage.

Its major competition is the Tamiya Emil, and given the likely difference in price, I would say that this kit should sell well, especially given the fact that you can build at least three sub-types of the Emil from the box.

Review sample courtesy of