Special Hobby 1/48 Fairey Barracuda

SPECIAL HOBBY 1:48 FAIREY BARRACUDA
'INBOX Review'

Reviewer: John Mancini (rec.models.scale)

Kit Details: Special Hobby No.48021 1/48 Fairey Barracuda

Aircraft History: The Fairey Barracuda was an ungainly looking aircraft that served in the Atlantic and Far East campaigns of World War II as a dual-role torpedo and dive bomber. Despite its performance and handicapped by its weight and comparative lack of power the Barracuda enjoyed a successful operational career, that also included raids against Japanese home islands in 1944 & 1945. The Mk.II variant was the definitive type and this and the Mk.III variant were finally retired in 1950 after a post-war training career. Probably the claim to fame moment for this particular aircraft was its famous attack on the German battleship, Tirpitz, in which it struck many times but failed to sink it, in 1944..

Kit Parts: This is more than a scaled up version of the former 1/72 MPM release of the same aircraft which as most limited run MPM kits now find themselves, is released under their alter-ego Special Hobby. There are around 76 limited run parts which contain little flash. The detail is engraved in a restrained fashion and likely to disappear under a couple of coats of paint, but it is superior to the smaller MPM release, further indicating the mold is not simply a scaled up version. There are plethora of clear parts which are injection molded, something the kit is keen to market to potential purchasers, and total ten. There are also over 20 resin parts and an etched fret which includes a lot of cockpit goodies such as seat harnesses for each crew member.

Instructions: The instructions are pretty standard and includes a brief history, sprue diagram, adequate assembly steps and reasonable painting information. The main bonus is three pages which contain four-view diagrams for decaling and painting.

Versions/Decals: Three aircraft can be built up from the kit, two from 829 Sqn on HMS Victorious which participated in the strikes on Tirpitz and one from 814 Sqn wearing Pacific fleet markings on HMS Vengeance. The decal sheet is smallish and well printed, covering a small amount of stencilling along with the roundels and codes for each example.

Cockpit/Wheel Bay Detail: With the addition of the etched fret and resin detail the cockpit is well catered for, with pretty much a fully detailed cockpit for the three crew members. The wheel wells are resin and contain nice detail, they are also blanked off.

Optional components: The canopy comes in three parts but an open canopy looks like a challenge that will be difficult to overcome. There are separate flaps, an arrestor hook which can be shown in the deployed position and underwing pylons.

On the Sprue Impressions: As usual with these types of kits a fair bit of preparation work will be needed to clean the parts up before affixing to each other. They will need careful detaching from the sprue as the soft plastic will be easy to gouge and subsequent trial fitting and trimming exercises to get the parts to fit.

The resin parts are first rate and caters mainly in the cockpit area, particularly the seats, interior parts as well as small air scoops. The etched fret is also excellent and provides for a lot of the smaller detailing areas, particularly seat belts and the radar array for the wings.

The parts are typical of limited run technology with restrained panel scribing as already mentioned, no locating pins of note and some areas that low pressure injection mold efforts means a bit of cleaning is required. The clear parts are injection molded and although thickish are quite clear.

The Barracuda was equipped to carry torpedoes, armour piercing bombs, 500-lb and 250-lb bombs although on most occasions it flew in clean configuration. The low point of this particular kit is that no stores are supplied, only some underwing pylons so you will need to dig out a torpedo from your Swordfish or bombs from other Fleet Air Arm kits if you want a loaded Barracuda.

Conclusion: Overall this is probably your standard mill of a limited run injection mold that will be a fair challenge to anyone who is not adept at working with multimedia kits of this kind. That said, this should also build up nicely into an accurate replica of a much maligned aircraft from WW2. Recommended.

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