IPMS/USA Reviews

About Hypersonic Models (from the website)

Hypersonic Models are currently located in Sennan City, Osaka prefecture, Japan, and products are manufactured, packed and shipped from there. All items for sale here are original Hypersonic Models' products, we don't act as re-sellers for other brands' or companies' products.

Contents Description

This is a set of aft fuselage half parts that correct the shape error on the engine shoulders of the Zoukei Mura short nose Phantoms. The parts are cast in an olive green resin, with fine recessed detail and panel lines. In addition to the re-shaped geometry, some additional surface detail has been included. This is not a drop-fit replacement set. Cutting of the fuselage is required, as well as some sanding of the remaining kit plastic and then puttying and blending of the new resin parts. Self adhesive cutting guide strips are provided that will mark the precise cutting line and guide your tool.

This set includes eight replacement pieces for the landing gear on ICM's recent Fw 189A kit. There are three parts for each of the main gear mounts (left and right struts and a retraction/extension arm) and two for the tail wheel assembly.

The first step is to remove the casting seams of each of the parts. I scraped of the seams with a Xacto blade and then used a small wire brush in my portable Dremel tool at low speed, to polish up the parts and remove the remainder of the seams. As the struts and the tail wheel are rather easily bent, I did as much of the cleanup before I detached them from the casting tree as it is much easier to handle them while they are still on the tree, plus they are much less likely to bend or go flying when they are still attached. Take care when cleaning out the flash on the insides of the castings, particularly the retraction/extension arms to avoid bending them inadvertently. Once everything was cleaned up, I painted all of the parts Tamiya RLM Grey 02 and the tail wheel Tamiya NATO Black.

Serving the U.S. military between 1959 and 1991, these were the weapons that would have been carried by our strike aircraft in the event of a nuclear conflict. This new release from Eduard will allow for a unique loading of any aircraft that served during the Cold War in nearly any branch of the service as well as by some NATO allies. Construction of the bombs is clear and anyone with limited experience with resin and brass will be able to put these to use.

Capable of being carried on any aircraft certified for bombing loads, the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps all stocked these weapons. This release is part of the Mod 1 variant while item 648460 is part of the Mod 2 variant. The weapons weighed between 2061 and 2116 pounds with variable yields of 70 kilotons up to 1 megaton. The first mod was 18 inches in diameter with a length of 12.5 feet. Fuzing options included airburst, ground burst, free fall, contact, or laydown, and could be dropped from as little as 300 feet.

Master Model of Poland produces small brass parts for detailing models, be they aircraft or ships. They have parts for aircraft in 1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/72, and 1/144, mostly pitot tubes, refueling probes and gun barrels.

This product is a single pitot tube for a 1/144 Gloster Meteor. The instructions are quite simple.

1. Drill a hole for the brass part.
2. Install the brass part, using CA glue.
3. Paint the part.

I had a HKM Meteor already built, and the kit comes without a pitot. So I added it.

One of the great things about the instructions is the drawing for the placement of the pitot. The drawing is 1/144 scale, and makes figuring out where to drill the hole much easier.

Once I got the drill started and the hole drilled, I got the part out of the package.

The Aircraft

The Douglas C-133 Cargomaster was the only turboprop powered strategic airlifter for the US Air Force. The 50 C-133s in service were built from 1956 to 1960. They were designed to carry large and heavy cargo and were superior to the preceding C-124 Globemaster in that they were faster, easier to load and could carry larger loads. One of the duties of the C-133 was delivery of strategic missiles, the Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman, being faster and safer than over the road. C-133s also delivered Atlas, Titan, and Saturn missiles to the launch pads for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.

When the C-5 came out in 1971, the C-133s were quickly taken off inventory, as most of them had reached their service limits for hours flown.

The Scale Aircraft Conversions Set

The SAC parts are direct replacements for the Roden landing gear parts. The white metal is very sturdy, and the fine parts can be carefully shaped to allow decent fit with the kit.

Painting

Since the original kit parts were painted silver, there was no painting to do. The metal SAC parts looked great.