Tag: Hobby Boss
-
Grumman F9F-2 Panther – Part Five – A Political Panther

Well, political in the sense that everything military in South America is political. From the smallest rubber truncheon to the GENERAL BELGRANO, every weapon is eventually turned against the local citizens, the neighbours, or the other armed forces. It is a tradition that probably started in the Inca and Aztec days, got noisier with the…
-
Grumman F9F-2 Panther – Part Four – The Simoom

Or is that sirocco? Whichever, it is the hot dry wind that blows nobody any good, and it blew into my workshop the other day. Had I been smart, I would have closed the flaming door… The day was hot, but not the spectacular heat that drives people into air conditioning and makes the newspaper…
-
Grumman F9F-2 Panther – Part Three – You Only Forget Once

Putting together a model of a jet airplane is pretty straightforward in comparison to a biplane or a WWII bomber. Fewer parts, no propellors, and usually a much sturdier undercarriage. But there is one thing that most modern jets have in common – tricycle landing gear and a tendency to sit on their tails. The…
-
Grumman F9F-2 Panther – Part Two – Tubby Little Devil

The cockpit assembly of the Panther has just been completed and I must say it’s pretty nice for a $ 20 model. 5-piece, and some fine moulding on the sidewalls and instrument panel. And for a change the panel decal actually fit the piece. Micro-Sol doesn’t hurt either. The interior of the fuselage is…
-
Grumman F9F-2 Panther – Part One – The Cheap Cat

I have long admitted a weakness for bargain model kits. You have only to show me a shelf full of the expensive ones with a cheap runt at the end and you know which one I’ll take. In the case of the Hobby Boss F9F-2 Panther it was sitting next to a similar kit in…
-
Hawker Sea Hawk – Part One – Memories of the 60’s

A casual post on the internet alerted me that my favourite go-to model company had released a 1:72 version of one of my favourite models of the 1960’s: the Hawker Sea Hawk. And this one from Hobby Boss was reported to be more than just a quick-build kid’s kit. Be that as it may, I…
-
North American P-51D – Part One – Spoiled For Choice

Let’s face it – if you want to make a model of a Mustang, Spitfire, Messerschmitt, or Focke Wulf fighter plane, you are not going to be denied the chance by any scarcity of kits. Every major manufacturer of plastic models seems to have these as their basic stock – often in multiple variants and…
-
Curtiss P-40- Part Two – A Hawk By Any Other Name
I have always been frustrated by the renaming and fuddling about with the P-40. I mean that business of calling it alternately the Warhawk, Tomahawk, or Kittyhawk, depending upon model number and air force it was flying for. I have given up trying to sort it all out and just call it the P-40 no…
-
Curtiss P-40 – Part One – The Roaring Forties

This is to be a dual-build…two kits constructed at the same time to make a team for display. But the team members will not to be entirely identical – one plane is a short-tailed P40E and one a long-tailed P40N. Their common point of reference is the Curtiss design and the fact that both marques…
-
Bell P-39 Airacobra – Part Two – The Sprues Goose

There was never going to be a great deal of desperate basic modelling in the construction of two P-39’s from Hobby Boss kits from the outset. And this was just what made the idea so appealing. I know the kit to be a good one and the ease of construction is just a bonus. Doing…
