Academy 1/72 Hawker Typhoon

ACADEMY 1:72 HAWKER TYPHOON
'In The Box Review'

Reviewer: John Thompson (taken from rec.models.scale)
A fully built review of this kit appears on SMAKR - see links below

Received today from Hannants the new Academy 1/72 Hawker Typhoon. It's excellent! Almost flawless, or at least, as nearly as I can tell without assembling it. The kit represents the early Mk IB with bubble canopy, non-shrouded exhausts, and non-Tempest (narrow span) tailplanes. Nitpicks are as follows, using the excellent drawings by A. Bentley as a guide:

1) The exhaust stacks are too wide, but this is easy to correct - file 'em off and cut a slot of the correct length and width, then substitute either the stacks from the Matchbox Tempest or the Aeroclub white metal "Griffon" stacks, which look like copies of the Matchbox Napier Sabre Tempest stacks, which are noticeably longer overall than real Griffon ones.

2) The cannons are about 1 mm too far inboard, maybe a bit less, but big deal.

3) For some reason, they didn't open up the cannon shell ejection chutes, but again, a bit of work with a drill and a file will put this right.

4) The wheels don't show the five openings on the wheel itself very well. Oddly, I found that True Details 1/48 early Spitfire wheels are very close, although the wheel hub diameter on these is just a hair too big.

That's about it! Good points are:

1) Very nice landing gear legs and mainwheel doors.

2) Good wheelwell detail, and good depth.

3) Two propellers - 3- and 4-blade types.

4) The curvature of the upper nose profile is just about dead nuts, not too flat like the old Frog car-door version.

5) Good decal sheet - the Sky codes are about as close to being correct for colour as makes no difference, and the Red in the roundels is very good - slightly brownish, not red like a fire engine. Two options, one with the 3-bladed prop, the other with the 4.

No sign of anything that hints that a car-door version might be coming, though. In other words, there are no parts in the kit which are marked "do not use". All in all, one of the best yet from Academy, in my humble opinion! This is a really nice kit, and long overdue.

(Addendum posted a couple of days later) Sorry; I did forget a couple of things. The kit includes rockets (quite nice ones) but no bombs. The cannons are faired. The interior consists of seven parts (floor, rudder pedals, instrument panel, gunsight, joystick, seat, and rear bulkhead), plus reasonable side panel detail as part of the fuselage halves.

Aftermarket components that may be of interest are:
* Aeroclub V133 - the "Griffon" exhaust stacks that look identical to the Matchbox Tempest Sabre stacks (four pieces)
* Aeroclub G040 - white metal faired cannons (four pieces)
* Aeroclub G041 - white metal unfaired cannons (four pieces)
* Aeroclub V039 - contents vary, depending on when the set was produced. Early ones have a vacuformed car-door canopy, white metal radiator insert, a tailwheel, and two mainwheels which look very much like the Frog car-door kit wheels. Later sets have no canopy, but include the white metal parts plus a white metal interior and main landing gear legs with doors attached.
* Airwaves AW2196 - etched brass interior plus some exterior components (look at this set before you buy it...)
*Airwaves AW2197 - etched brass flaps

It would be nice to think that someone will release a detail/conversion set with a car-door canopy, resin door and interior, accurate resin wheels, and a few etched brass bits, but I imagine the best we can hope for will be a modern brass set from Eduard in a month or two. Oh, the latest issue of Scale Aircraft Modeller (Vol. 20, No. 12 - February 1999) has some very good detail sketches of the rollover structure, etc., on the car-door version.

Related Reviews:-

Academy 1/72 Typhoon Mk.IB

Related INBOX Reviews:-

Academy 1/72 Typhoon Mk.IB (Adrian)

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