Hi All, I am a new into the hobby here again, having returned after 25 years of being away. I have posted a message earlier about how to get started but wanted to ask about where I could find info and reviews on the model aircraft. I have been to the cybermodeler website and they have good reviews there but couldn't find info on date of manufacture of the kits.

What I am trying to avoid is buying kits that are older and have since been replaced by newer versions say from Tamiya or Hasegawa. I have been involved in armour modelling for the past year and through research and reading lots of info on various forums I found that some of the armour kits I purchased upon returning to the hobby were older ones with incorrect parts, specs etc. I kind of don't want to make the same mistake with model aircraft.

Your suggestions would be very welcome.

I check by Modeling Madness (they have a good size preview & review listings) tends a bit towards A/C, Hyperscale has a fair selection of reviews, not as extensive or well organized as MM's. Don't know if any of these will give you certain answers on kit age. There was a great listing for ships Rejena's or something like that, it has a new owner now (don't know who), try Ship Model Mailing List, they may have a link.

HTH

Hi Dave,

Welcome to Aeroscale.

Actually I'm surprised, whilst everyone's referring you elsewhere, that nobody's suggested checking out the reviews right here on Aeroscale. Just click the "Reviews" tab at the top of the page. There are hundreds of reviews there that many people have spent a great deal of time and effort putting together.

Check it out. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Rudi

Rudi is right. You want kit reviews? That is what we do best here. I even have a website dedicated to kit reviews for WWI aviation kit subjects but I have done more recent kits here than there.

Gentleman, Thanks very much for your responses. I will check this website out and others as well.

Cheers,

David.

Age of kits is a bit of a fraught subject. Some varieties keep coming back like the undead, and what you think is a new kit turns out to have been created before your Dad picked up his first tube of glue and tried to eat it. As a rule, while few people writing reviews will know for certain what the date of origin is, they will have a good idea of whether a particular kit is new, ancient, or modified. If you cross-reference enough sources you generally find the answer fairly quickly.

Of course, if you have a particular subject and/or kit in mind, you could do a lot worse than ask about it on here or one of the other main sites.

Thanks Sean, I have been advised that Tamiya and Hasegawa are more less the gold standard for kits in 1/48 scale. But What about some of these other newer providers like Dragon, Eduard, Trumpeter etc. How do they rate against the incumbants?