1:32 GBU-39 SDB (8 pcs) and BRU-61 (2 pcs)

A small bomb with a long reach

The GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb came out of a simple requirement: to get more precision hits onto a single pylon than classic bomb armament would carry. The weapon of the 250-pound class has a slim body and folding Diamond Back wings that open out after release and turn the fall into a long glide. Guidance is handled by satellite reception backed up by an inertial unit, so the crew attacks from a distance that short-range anti-aircraft cover cannot reach. The weapon entered US Air Force service in 2006 and is carried by the F-15E, the F-16, the B-1B and the A-10.

Eight bombs and two racks

The package holds eight bodies and a pair of BRU-61 racks, on which four weapons are hung as a single unit. The rack is the essential thing here: without it a single bomb would hang under the pylon, with it four at once. That gives the model armament matching a real combat load rather than a token single weapon under the wing.

Resin instead of a parting line

Injection-molded plastic demands draft angles and a parting line, and on a thin fin that line always runs across the surface the builder then has to restore laboriously. A casting has no such trace at all and the edge stays crisp right out to the tip. It is paid for with different work: the parts sit on a casting block, from which they are separated with a fine saw, and the cut is then trued up with abrasive paper. The joints will only take cyanoacrylate glue; solvent for polystyrene does not work here. Before painting, the castings are rinsed in lukewarm water with dish soap so that the mold release agent disappears from the surface.