IPMS/USA Reviews

PJ Production is a Belgian company that is self-described as a company who specializes in the creation and production of resin scale models and accessories aimed at amateurs of military aircraft kits and aviation-related dioramas in 1/72nd, 1/48th and 1/32nd scale.

Eduard releases a ProfiPACK of a new kit with all the bells and whistles and at the same time, they release an OVERTREE kit with no bells or whistles. An Overtree is for people like me who have a lot of decals and don't mind not having the pre-painted fret or the masks. Now those things are available separately. Personally, I like the pre-painted photo etch and the masks and since I have a bunch of decals, including leftovers from the ProfiPACK, that I don't mind. Even the box is devoid of anything that belies the beauty inside the plain white cardboard box. It just has an end sticker.

There are some things that just look better in scale thinness. Eduard agrees and produces a set for their new Bf-109G-10.

This set is packaged in the standard Eduard resealable package. The contents are protected by some card stock. One fret of photo-etch is included in nickel plated brass. The parts that are very visible are the landing gear doors and flaps. Both of which will look better in brass than plastic. The one thing that I think is essential is the wheel wells shroud, which has the cutouts that are on the real plane, not like the kit parts which hints at the cutouts. There are some other things like a fuselage access hatch, strap for the drop tank and the landing gear plumbing.

All these items will add to the look of the finished model. The flaps alone will allow you to position them as you see fit which cannot be said of the kit ones. The folds of the flaps mechanism are complicated so care must be exercised to get them correct, but careful examination of the instructions will make that easier. That is the only 'difficult' part. The rest of the parts are easy to use.

The Eduard OVERTREE and Weekend Edition kits are really nice kits, but I think they benefit from having the pre-painted photo etch in the model. I personally love the pre-painted photo-etch. There is detail printed on them that I could never be able to replicate with a paint brush.

Packaged in the typical resealable package with a card stock protective backing is one fret of pre-painted PE. This single fret contains many essential interior parts but the biggest impact would have to be from the seatbelts, shoulder harness, and the instrument panel. Besides these key parts, there are photo etch deflectors for the engine exhausts, as well as, some other panels and rudder pedals. These parts are all important. There are oil cooler faces as well. Personally, I don't use them as I like the way that the kit parts look, but that is up to the modeler.

Another nice touch is the inclusion of the scribing template for the saddle panel in front of the canopy. I always lose that bit of detail. This makes restoring it easy. Impart a slight bend on the panel then tape it down. Then just a simple pin vise will work to scribe the lines.

Last summer Eduard released the first of its 1/72 MiG-21 kits. The kit depicts the MiG-21MF (NATO reporting name - "Fishbed J") aircraft that were built at the Gorky factory. These aircraft were primarily exported to the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. Some of these aircraft were subsequently re-sold or passed on to other countries, such as Mali which acquired several aircraft from the Czech Air Force. According to Eduard's instruction sheet, production only ran for two years before being closed, so only a limited number were actually built.