Airfix 1/72 P-40E Kittyhawk

AIRFIX 1:72 P-40E KITTYHAWK
'INBOX Review'

Reviewer: Myself (smakr@bigpond.com)
A full build up review of this kit also appears on this site - see links at bottom of page

Kit: Airfix "Series 1" Kit Number 01038, Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk

Aircraft: The P-40 series of fighters were the ultimate versions of a successful range of 1930's "Hawk" designs. The P-40 went under a few different names depending on the variant and the country using it, which included Kittyhawk, Warhawk and Tomahawk. The P-40E was known as the Kittyhawk Ia in the hands of the British and Commonwealth forces. The Kittyhawks were supplied to the British under a lend-lease agreement from the US and first went into action in the Western Desert against Rommel's forces in 1942. Most famous of the Kittyhawks were the No.112 SQN who were the pioneers of wearing shark mouths on the aircraft.

Parts: 1 Sprue in plastic bag of most of the 33 parts, with small attachment trees for the upper and lower wings, plus fuselage halves floating loosely. Three clear parts on one sprue float in same plastic bag - guess what, they were scratched!! Parts are light grey with raised rivet and line detail. Excessive on the rivets but not as large and ugly as on other older re-released kits. Crisp plastic, but easy to warp. Very very minor flash, only needs a quick going over of the excel blade on some of the smaller parts, including propeller blades.

Instructions: Comes in two parts - one A4 sheet for the brief history, explanation of symbols etc. Then folded A3 sheet for six assembly steps. Reasonably easy to follow, includes the last step split into two parts - one for wheels up and the other for wheels down, which is good. Two pages devoted to the two versions produced, four view diagrams of markings provided. Colour call outs are provided for individual parts as well, but is provided with Humbrol numbers only, so if you use another brand you will need a handy cross-reference chart!! Overall the instructions are quite good, but the Humbrol numbers as always is not good.

Versions: Two P-40E Kittyhawk (1a) examples provided. A shark-mouth version from No.112 Squadron, RAF, Western Desert, North Africa, Mid 1942 in upper Earth and Brown-Yellow camouflage with Azure Blue undersides. Second example is an RAAF No.77 Squadron, Livingstone, Australia, November 1942 wearing an Ensign insignia on the port nose/intake. This wears upper Dark Green (read Foliage Green) and "Brown Bess" camouflage with Sky blue undersides.

Decals: Produced by Airfix with reasonable register, again the red of both countries roundels and other components is more of a red-brown colour. Some scratchy white marks on the blue part of both countries roundels, one roundel of the RAF example squiggly on the edges. Not bad, but not that great either.

Accuracy: Dimension wise this kit is underscaled slightly and just deemable as being acceptable in the scale. It clearly has the outlines of a P-40 but whether it has the outlines of a P-40E seems quite apparent as not being the case. Absent are some minor details, including sufficient notice of the cooling gills, some aerials, gunsight, rudder hinges etc. The rear of the intake is almost molded as if it didn't exist, fin shape and wing shapes are not quite right for this variant, and the nose is also not correctly portrayed after scrutinising each from the sprue. Overall, disappointing.

Detail: There's not a lot of detail provided in the kit, it is marketed as a Series 1 kit and that's about all you can expect to get! Minimal amount of parts in the kit, no real detail to speak of, the cockpit includes a figure and seat, nothing else

Options: Other than a moveable propeller and wheels up/down, no options. The canopy is marketed in the kit as having to be closed. Frankly having a look at it, dry testing the clear parts, even if you cut the windscreen from the main canopy, I am not sure it would slide back over the rear vision panels anyway.

Impressions: The only thing going for this kit is that it is cheap and easy to build and will most likely be a decent fitting kit also to put together. It looks like is does do the P-40 aircraft's unique lines justice but it appears someone threw in a P-40E mould based on photographs or drawings and little research. It has a number of flaws in trying to replicate the P-40E explicitly. I'd say it would be a good kit to throw together for the sake of having a P-40 in RAF or RAAF colours in your cabinet, but for the serious modeller I don't think that this would be an acceptable build to get a true P-40E replication, there are a lot better examples on the market, most notably the Hasegawa version. In fact I put these two examples together (I built the Hase E version some time ago) and the difference even in detail is remarkable. My initial impressions would be that I'll give it a go, but I am not expecting a truly accurate representation at the end, and of course only at the conclusion can I be totally judgemental about its shortcomings or efforts.

Other Comments: I've heard quite a few comments over time about this kit, mixed reports all up, some saying it will capture the basic lines well, others say to avoid the kit at all costs. I wouldn't go as far as the latter, it does look like a Kittyhawk but I am leaning toward the theory that it fails to replicate the E version very well.

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