Hello all.
Jason, you'd probably have missed this as it was in 'what will Airfix give us thread' and it was only because I had a look at the Airfix site I noticed this.
I don't think I made it clear, the "Airfix Club" is a subscription,
see
http://www.airfix.com/official-airfix-club-membership/So, not generally available, but thought worth mentioning here.
Yes, there is a new tool Airfix P-40B, threads on Britmodeller and elsewhere. 72nd is not my area of interest but I have not heard howls of anguish over it.
If I'm right about the Spitfire and Hurricane versions the Spitfire is OK, the Hurricane needs a lot of work, not only the rivets, but the canopy and spine are too shallow.
Still, neat box art I thought.
As for the old VVS kits, that's a nostalgia trip, IIRC I got a load of kits in 1975, age 9, the details are hazy, I got some cash and harangued my old man into getting about 8 kits in a go.
I'm pretty sure I got the Il-2, Pe-2 and Yak-9 in that batch, they were were wonderfully exotic, [I always fancied the Il-28 but I never saw it for sale, or not when I had funds!]
(by 'Haranged' I meant he wasn't happy as he didn't much like plastic kits, 'too plastic' plus he didn't like warlike toys, he become rather PC by then... And, boy did that ever not work! I'm here posting about those Airfix kits 37 years later... I digress. )
Hmm, well, being a pack rat I actually still have the above 3!
I know the Il-2 is junk, I don't know about the Yak-9, at some point it got dissembled, memory tells me it looks like a Yak,
the problems of that Yak-9 are so bad that changing the camo, decals or boxing would be a loss of resources only.
I'd say it would be worthwhile, even just so modellers are shown it wasn't in bloody RAF style green and brown!!
As for the Pe-2, I recently bought one, as I'd quite like to build that experimental scheme discussed here at length,and some practice[I have 4 1/48th ones stashed] and the kit looks surprisingly decent shapewise, the fuselage is an oval, I read that it should be circular, but it's hard to tell from photos.
I did google it, but didn't get a good answer
Don't know, further research would be needed, but this is the
original boxing, even has a price sticker saying 3/6 [ie pre decimal 3 shilling and 6 pence - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A3sd] which dates it pre 1971.