B-24J Cockpit Interior S.A.

Destined to the venerable 1:48 scale Revell/Monogram kit, Eduard's B-24J Cockpit Interior S.A. set comes in the usual plastic pouch of the Czech Manufacturer. The set is composed of three PE frets (two are pre-painted and self adhesive) which are protected by two cardboard sheets to prevent them from damage. A small A5 size construction notice is included as well.

The pre-painted frets are composed of parts which are mostly destined to the cockpit area. For fret Labeled "FE441 49441" (it can be purchased separately as a ZOOM set) this means parts to do the big instrument panel and some side consoles and for fret labeled "49411 part1" this means additional side consoles, placards and levers. The instrument panel is made of several parts and layers of photo etch and will look really nice once assembled, but also more accurate than the plastic one. The first fret has 24 parts on it while the second one has 35 so this make a total of 59 colored and self adhesive parts. Putting them in place is easy as you only have to free them from their metal fret and place them in the appropriate location. However, make sure that the base is clean and flat otherwise it won't work very well.

The second fret is composed of 55 parts which will enhance the level of detail of the cockpit interior even further. Provided are a new cockpit floor, a new central console, sidewalls, replacement seats, New gun barrels for the forward turret etc... Most of the parts will replace the original relief details of the plastic parts, which will have to be removed. This is clearly explained in the instructions and won't represent a too difficult task.

The instructions are printed in black & white on an A4 sheet folded in two to make a small 4 pages booklet. While the drawings are small, they are easy to follow.

B-24J seatbelts

A separate reference is available as well (49670) which provides the seatbelts for the front cabin area. One can wonder why it wasn't included in the Cockpit interior set but since many modellers prefer to scratchbuild their own seatbelts it does make sense to sell them separately after all.

Conclusion

It is nice to see that Eduard are doing photo etched upgrade sets for older models as these really benefit a lot from the inclusion of the new metal parts. It seems that other references are in preparation for the same variant and we can only hope that the B-24D will also get the same treatment in the future.

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