Just some cautionary notes for fellow modelers. Of course, this is a reissue of the near excellent Monogram 1/72 short-nose Phantom. The plastic is unchanged, but includes parts from both the C/D kit and the J kit. The decal sheet is beautiful, printed by Cartograf. I know there was some stink about copying somebody else’s decal sheet, but I compared them, and while similar, they are not scanned copies to my eye. There’s also a resin (?) ECM pod made by Admiralty Model Works.
There are three boo boos in the printed material you should know about. First, the fourth aircraft on the marking sheet, Chuck Yeager’s commander’s bird from the 4th TFW, is shown in overall FS36622 gray with white markings. Obviously, this is wrong; the bird should have full camouflage like the other three above it.
Second, the artist used the same light gray FS36622 tone (B&W instructions, color box end) as the overall color of the Michigan Air Guard bird. This should be FS16473 “aircraft” or “ADC” gray.
Third, when the box went to the printer, the UPC code was a leftover from another kit, the Super Corsair in 1/48 scale (Special Hobby kit). When I bought the kit, the scanner rang up the $45 price for the larger kit. AM says they are aware of the UPC code problem and sent out correction stickers to all distributors. Obviously that didn’t work in all cases, so if you buy this kit, watch out for the price. It should retail for around $28.
At work today I noticed this kit. I decided to crack it open as I haven’t heard anything about the kit yet. The kit I opened had the replacement sticker on it, but we use our own barcode system anyway. Looks like a decent kit, but the decals really stuck out to me. Looks to be a fun build, alas I only build in 1/48th. Too bad it’s a repop though!
Paul, thanks for the heads up. I can tell you that Acc. Min. made a new decal sheet - from scratch. The ECM pod is resin (you know who made it too [;)])
As for the marking error, I will look into that and find out what they had as a referance. I know personally that the Acc. Min. design team really does their homework and I doubt it is in error. If it is, I’m sure they will say so on their website shortly. I will point this out to the appropriate person on your behalf.
Cheers
Drew
EDIT I have spoken with one of their design team, and they are looking into your claim Paul. I will let you know if I hear anything.
No need, Drew. I spoke with Bob Johnson at AM before I posted this on the Forum. They now know about the mistakes. They are not “claims.” Johnson and the company already were trying to fix the UPC problem, Johnson realized the mistake on the Yeager bird as we discussed it, and said “that should be a gloss gray, shouldn’t it?” on the Michigan bird. I told him which color it should be. Bob was just about to go for a weekend boating, and rationalized that “modelers will know what the correct colors should be.” We’ll see if they mention corrections on their website, but in my opinion, these are mistakes that should have been corrected before the kit was released. These are oversights. I offered my assistance in future efforts.
The one thing that AM does have going for it Paul, is that it is trying to recruit modellers onto it’s staff. Up untill a couple of years ago, there weren’t any. Now their art director (who Bob called first) is a modeller and is trying to find out what happened. (I won’t mention his name)
You know as well as I do that in this industry there is never one persong making the calls. The final call on things rests with someone that rarely has any knowledge of the subject and hopes that all the diffrent people employed do their jobs right. It only takes one person, be it on their staff or to an outsourced shop, to make a simple mistake. I know I’ve seen a few errors in FSM that should have never been made too. I’m sure you’ve seen more [:D] They happen plain and simple. You have to give it AM though, they try to remedy and problems regardles if they were theirs or not.