SCALE MODEL NEWS

David Jefferis reports: We recently made an SMN Crew trip to Britain’s largest air museum, near the university city of Cambridge. Imperial War Museum Duxford (just ‘Duxford’ to most of us) is a droolworthy destination for anyone with even the slightest interest in aviation. Apart from the dozens of beautifully preserved aircraft to pore over, there are hangars full of restoration projects - from Mustang to Staggerwing, there’s plenty of choice for all. But IWM Duxford offers more... Duxford Land Warfare Housed at the far end of the airfield are the Land Warfare displays, housed in a separate, newish building. It’s packed with fascinating exhibits, with a prime focus on the World War II era. There’s also the British Army Royal Anglian Regiment Museum to inspect. As this writer’s father was a fighting soldier in the Anglian’s forerunner, the Leicesters, the exhibits here were of particular interest. Model displays The organizers at IWM Duxford have not forgotten model fans either. There ...

SMN report Italeri’s latest 1:35 scale nautical kit is the neatly produced Biber (‘Beaver’) one-man midget submarine from World War II. To this big military-model standard scale, even the Biber works out to a fair size in model form, in this case some 186 mm (7.3 in) long. It comes with two well-sculpted figures, as well as decals for three different subs, and a small etched-metal fret with super-detail parts. Biber on view at the Imperial War Museum There are quite a few Bibers on display in military museums across Europe - the one pictured above is on view in the UK’s Imperial War Museum, London. It’s a place well worth visiting, and if you build the Italeri Biber kit, seeing the real thing complete with its quota of lumps, bumps, scrapes, dings and dents, will allow you to add those extra details to take the Italeri sub from smooth-but-a-bit-dull ‘stock’ to knocked-about-and-real ‘superb’. Biber armament In service, the Biber could carry two 530 mm (21 in) torpedos or a pair of mine...

David Jefferis reports We recently made an SMN Crew trip to Britain’s largest air museum, near the university city of Cambridge. Imperial War Museum Duxford (just ‘Duxford’ to most of us) is a droolworthy destination for anyone with even the slightest interest in aviation. Apart from the dozens of beautifully preserved aircraft to snout around, there are hangars full of restoration projects - from Mustang to Staggerwing, there’s plenty of choice for all. Duxford’s American Air Museum There’s also lots to interest model fans, with two decent shops, plus various miniatures on view here and there. Among our favourites was a P-38 Lightning, on display in the three-year old American Air Museum, a high-tech building designed by the famed architects Foster & Partners. Here the P-38 could be seen in front of a real P-47 Thunderbolt - nicknamed ‘the jug’ by World War II pilots. An aircraft named ‘Yippee’ The shiny polished-metal finish model got us thinking about alternatives to traditional...