AMS Resin 1/48
F-84F/RF-84F Airframe Backdate Set

If you've been keeping up with recent events, you've seen the nice array of AMS Resin detailed resin cockpits for the Revell/Monogram, Kinetic, and FM/Heller F-84F kits as well as for the FM/Heller RF-84F kits. Well AMS Resin didn't stop there. They've been working on a variety of new subjects, but before they leave the Republic fighter, they've provided one more detail set.

This new offering is elegant in its simplicity. Early F-84Fs and RF-84Fs had a simple ventral fin under the tail before the braking parachute housing was put in its place. The ventral fin in this set simply replaces the molded-on parabrake housing.

In addition, the early F-84Fs had smaller blow in doors to feed supplemental air to the engine at low (or no) airspeeds. As Republic would learn through operational experience, larger blow-in doors were required to provide sufficient air to the engine to avoid a compressor stall at certain power settings and low/no speed. This detail set provides a set of replacement blow-in doors to backdate your kit to the early block F-84F. Blow-in doors were not used on the RF-84F.

Check your references, as AMS Resin advises, some early aircraft had the small blow-in doors and the parabrake housing, others had the larger doors and the ventral fin. Of course some of them had both whilst the later blocks (as depicted by Revell/Monogram, Kinetic, and FM/Heller) had the parabrake housing and larger doors.

If you have one of the Revell/Monogram 1/48 F-84Fs, the Heller or Fonderie Miniature (FM) F-84Fs, or even one of Heller's classic RF-84Fs, this detail set can get you to an accurate rendition of an early-block aircraft. If you haven't seen the cockpit detail sets for these kits, look here for more information.

Recommended for experienced modelers!

You can order this set and/or any of the cockpits in the series directly from AMS Resin http://mysite.verizon.net/resqt29j/

My sincere thanks to AMS Resin for this review sample!