IPMS/USA Reviews

Eduard has for a long time been releasing excellent aircraft kits in many forms- but the Profipack editions are easily my favorite ones as they usually include extras including color PE frets, masks, and sometimes bit of their Brassin products as well. This newer edition of their Mustang line contains no Brassin, but the included masks and color PE add immeasurable amounts of excellent detail to the kit build as we will soon see.

What's Inside the Box

The kit contents come in a nice sturdy box and includes the following well-packed bits:

This is a review of the 1/24^th Academy Hyundai Santa Fe.

Engine

No engine. It's curbside kit and a 2018 model year.

Interior

Interior is wonderfully engraved and everything fits perfectly. There were no painting instructions so interior was left black from the kit.

Body

Body was crisp and clean with no flash. I used HOK white and coated with 2 part urethane clear.

Chassis

The suspension parts are very few - about 5 parts total. The exhaust is molded in the chassis leaving only a chrome muffler and exhaust tip to attach.. All the parts fit with no issues.

Instructions

The instructions are several pages long and printed on glossy paper.

Decals

Decals were crisp and I was able to apply them very easily.

"Pave Hawk" HH-60G

This the second part of the review of Kitty Hawk's 1/35 "Pave Hawk" HH-60G. This review covers the engines, exterior, and armament of the Pave Hawk kit. Background on the Pave Hawk, description of the kit, contents, and interior assembly of the kit is reviewed separately:

Kitty Hawk "Pave Hawk" HH-60G, Part 1 Interior

Background

The HH-60G Pave Hawk's core mission is recovery of personnel under hostile conditions, including combat search and rescue. Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk 26227 of the 305th Rescue Squadron based at Davis-Monthan AFB participated in "Operation Red Wings II, On 2 July 2005, near Salar Ban in Northeastern Afghanistan. This aircraft picked up "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell."   Wikipedia/Jetphotos.

I used references provided by Werner's Wings and online sources to build the Kitty Hawk model to reflect the "Lone Survivor" 26227.

Once known as MPM, Special Hobby is one of the premier model kit manufacturers in the Czech Republic. It is actually a collective of other well-known brands, such as Azur, CMK, Planet Models, and many more. Once known for its short-run kits of esoteric subjects, Special Hobby has now become a major powerhouse in the model kit industry, using cutting-edge steel molds to produce a diverse and well-engineered range of subjects.

The Aircraft

The JASDF is nearing the end of service for their F-4EJ Phantom IIs. They have ordered F-35s as replacements. This aircraft is one of two from the 302nd Squadron which were celebrating the retirement of their F-4s. This one is the black one. They also had a white one.

Japan will still have some Phantoms for about a year, depending on F-35 deliveries.

The Model

This kit was originally produced by F-Toys, a Japanese company specializing in pre-painted kits which are easy to assemble and finish. Platz then acquires the molds and makes kits which are pretty easy to assemble, but need to be painted and decals applied.