Aircraft Weapons:VIII (U.S. Air-To-Air Missiles & Jamming Pods)
kit no. X72-013 / 35013
Review by Al Magnus - one72guy(at)gmail(dot)com

The kit

Inside the box there are 3 identical sprues of hard light grey injected plastic totaling 66 parts.

Each sprue contains 22 pieces.

 Missile   No. of 
Copies 		  No. of Parts 
per MIssile 		  Kit Part 
No.s 
 AIM-9X Sidewinder   2   1   A1 
 AIM-120C AMRAAM   4   1   A12 


Also included are parts for AN/ALQ-188(V) EAT Pod (parts A2, A3 4xA11), LAU-127 (part A4), LAU-115 B/A launch rail (parts A5, A6), LAU-115 C/A launch rail (parts A9, A10) and AN/ALQ-184 ECM Pod (parts A7, A8).

This Hasegawa's latest release in their series of American airborne weapons. The parts are excellently molded with fine engraved detail, minimal mold seams and no flash. Hasegawa appears to have returned to molding all the fins to the missiles instead of having some or all as separate parts. This makes the fins a bit thick but they are easily sanded to a thinner profile. I have always found that separate fins, even though they usually were molded much thinner, never seem to fit well into their assigned slots and filling the gaps generated more work and potential for damage than scraping and sanding fins that had been molded directly to the missile body.

There are three identical decal sheets containing the various lines and stencils for the missiles. The decal film is a bit thick as is common with Hasegawa kits, but the images respond to Microsol very well and snug down tight. The images are opaque, clear and well printed.

The instruction sheet contains colouring and marking info. Paint numbers are for Gunze Sangyo Aqueous and Gunze Sangyo Mr. Color paints. United States FS numbers are included where applicable.



Conclusion

Once again this set is an excellent value for the money and definitely the kit to use if you need modern US electronics pods and air-to-air missiles.

Addendum: 11/April/2020

Parts of this set have now been eclipsed by many newer products that have come on the market since this set was first released circa 2011, almost 10 years ago. It remains a decent value for those wishing to arm their model aircraft on a budget.


 

Review Last Updated: 11 April 2020

© AC Magnus 2012