Folks,
While strolling through my LHS yesterday, I came upon a fairly new release (Dec 2016) of the Minicraft PBM5. This one is for the late war "Nightmare" night patrol bomber aircraft, although it can be built as a patrol bomber out of Okinawa in 1945 too. The new kit number is 11684. I'd traded my Minicraft PBM5A a while back, as I'm not really interested in the -5 series aircraft, as they are all late war (1944 and later). But I'm very interested in the -3 and earlier series aircraft. As I looked at this new kit, it has plugs to fill the holes for the amphibian landing gear, and comes with a sprue for flotation gear, tail wheel, and depth charges for the bomb bays. It still has the elongated -5 cowlings as opposed to the short -3 cowlings-- but I think it could be built into a nice PBM3 with an engine change. I've read the Ginter book, and have the Squadron book on the PBM. Here's my question-- could this PBM5 be built as a PBM3 with just the engine cowling change?
I also note there are various radar options in the kit, from the large radome to the mast mounted set, and options for cargo noses and "smooth" (non powered) forward turret in the kit. Has anyone heard if Minicraft intends to release other versions? If so I might wait for a -3
VR, Russ