Armory 1/48 AIM-9B Sidewinder Sets
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
The AIM-9 Sidewinder missile is one of the world's most prominent air-to-air missiles, serving with a great number of air forces around the world. The Sidewinder can be found on every major fighter aircraft in the US inventory from the late 1950s to present day, and over the years the design has gone through quite a few changes, with the current AIM-9X looking quite different from the original AIM-9B. And when it comes to performance, the latest version can do stuff that they never even imagined back in the 1950s when the original design came out.
The Sets
Given the importance of the AIM-9, one would think that there would be no shortage of Sidewinders for the modeler. To be sure, quite a few kits have AIM-9s in the box, but in most cases, the quality is sorely lacking as armament appears to be an afterthought. So we turn to the aftermarket, and Armory has come out with a couple sets for early AIM-9 Sidewinders in 1/48.
There are two sets from Armory, 4808a and 4808b. They're both AIM-9B Sidewinder with AERO 3B launcher sets, but 4808a is for the F-4 Phantom and contains four missiles while 4808b is for the F-105 Thunderchief and has two missiles. There are also subtle differences with the launcher rails. The sets come with beautifully cast resin missile bodies and launcher rails, with the missile fins provided in photoetch. While the resin parts will offer no challenges in assembly, the folding of the fins will be quite challenging. The detail in the photoetch is quite good, though, so perhaps the effort will be worth it.
For those looking for some nice early Sidewinders, these sets offer a great option. My thanks to Armory for the review samples.