PJ Production

1/48 NATO Pilot (1960's era)

Kit Number: 481118

Reviewed by  Bart Cusumano, IPMS# 31882

MSRP: 5.20 Euros Available from Available from PJ Productions, Belgium www.pjproduction.net I kind of like the presence of a nice pilot figure in an aircraft kit to give it a sense of size and scale and include them in all of my modeling projects. PJ Production have released a new 1:48 scale figure of an early 1960's era NATO pilot. The kit is a three-piece resin casting (the main body/head and two arms) molded on one carrier strip. It comes packed in a clear poly zip bag secured by a fold-over blue cardboard header. There is a small insert that has a color photo of the finished figure, which is a good thing as there are no color call-outs. The casting is clean and required very little in the way of cleanup. The details are crisp and well molded. The oxygen hose is a thing of beauty. The figure is festooned in sunglasses, so there is virtually no face to paint. The head is molded looking to the right, giving the figure a nice casual look. After some test-fitting, the arms were a perfect fit to the torso and required no filler. The left hand is depicted in the stick-holding position, while the right is placed for throttle or side-console instrument operation - and you actually get ten fingers! Proportions look good and detail is more than adequate for 1:48 scale. There are some nice undercuts of details for 1:48 scale, particularly in the oxygen hose and the tiny shirt collars. On the nit-pick side, there was an air bubble that required filling on the nose of the oxygen mask. No biggie, but it could not be ignored. I painted my pilot in various Humbrol enamels to match the picture of the finished figure. Vallejo acrylic (#980, black green) was used for the visor and lenses of the sunglasses, topped off with a nice coat of Future to give it a good shine. Metal fittings were picked out in a mix of silver printer's ink and raw umber artist oils. This was a really nice figure and is recommended for your 1960's era NATO aircraft. Thanks to PJ Production for the review sample and to John Noack for allowing me to review it. Other nice aircraft related figures can be seen on PJ Production's website (see above).

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