MPM 1/72 Hawker Sea Hawk Mk.100

MPM 1:72 HAWKER SEA HAWK MK.100

Reviewer: Simon Skinner (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 9 March 2003

Kit Details:

MPM Hawker Sea Hawk Mk.100 - 1/72 - #72509

Aircraft History:

The Hawker Sea Hawk was brought into the RN (Royal Navy) to replace the rather disappointing Supermarine Attacker, and became the first real RN high performance jet fighter. Developed from the P.1040 and first flying in late 1947 the type showed some promising qualities, with the first production F.1 model flying in 1951. In 1956 the Sea Hawk saw combat service in the Suez Canal crisis where it was used as an interceptor, bomber and attack aircraft and served four aircraft carriers. It remained in active service until 1959 before being replaced by the Sea Vixen. The Mk.100 served with the German Navy and sported a taller tail fin as the main distinguishing feature to earlier models. 68 models (incl anti-shipping radar equipped Mk.101s) were delivered to West Germany. When West Germany withdrew their Sea Hawks from service, India bought 18 of these Mk.100/101s to serve alongside (and later replace) earlier FGA Mk.6 aircraft.

The Kit:

I wrote an INBOX Review of the MPM 1/72 Sea Hawk kit for SMAKR, and the parts for this Mk.100 kit are virtually identical. So, I will make this brief as you are welcome to read my comments further there which apply to this kit as well. There are about 35 light grey limited run parts in the kit on two sprues with one clear canopy part on another. Panel lines are finely recessed and there is a minimal amount of flash found on the sprues. A few ejector pin marks will need removal when undertaking the project. The tooling has appeared to be revised from the earlier Sea Hawk kit release, although the taller tail fin and rear fuselage assembly is about the only difference I could spot. I worked on both kits at the same time, but pulled out the Mk.100 after I had done a bit of work on the earlier kit, and caught up to identical construction stages.

Instructions:

Booklet style in A5 size, with a brief history and technical data in four languages, sprue diagram, six stage exploded assembly views and four-view diagrams showing painting and decal information. Humbrol and FS numbers and names are provided for the external scheme but highly disappointingly, there is no painting information supplied throughout construction.

Construction:

The cockpit is made up of a floor (with molded pedals), seat, control column, rear bulkhead, side panels and main instrument panel, all of which are in plastic as there are no resin or etched parts in this kit. These are assembled mainly into the lower forward fuselage half (with molded lower wings) although the instrument panel and rear bulkhead go into the upper half. At least 3gm of nose weight needs to be deposited in the nose to prevent tail sitting.

Before placing the fuselage halves together, some blanking off plates for the engine and exhaust areas with a central platform acting as a spar is trapped inside, a engine mount is affixed underneath the platform. The upper forward fuselage fits quite well but a good amount of cleaning up around the join lines is needed. The gun troughs were opened up slightly as they are only engraved lines on the kit.

While this was drying the rear fuselage incorporating the fin and adding on the arrestor hook and tail planes can be assembled. Again the join lines needed cleaning up. The fit of the rear fuselage section to the forward fuselage needed a few dry guns but ended up fitting well, however, the join lines are prominent where the two meet and need to be attended to.

The basic airframe was now complete. The undercarriage can be added, the doors are molded in one-piece and need to be carefully cut at the appropriate sections to display the model with its wheels down. Here you can see the engine part underneath the spar acts as the inside wall of the wheel bays with the bulkheads doubling up to box them in, resulting in, my opinion, are rather realistic interior portrayal. The nose wheel bay is the otherside of the cockpit floor. The undercarriage struts need a bit of cleaning up and present themselves as being sturdy, although fiddly to insert. The prominent landing light on the nosewheel door is not depicted and there is no port wing pitot probe provided either.

The boxart depicts four underwing tanks but no stores are supplied in the kit. The canopy is crystal clear and fits well providing a nice view of the cockpit making it worth while to spend some effort in there. A small air scoop is added just above the starboard intake and the MPM instructions give three different views of adding this part to help ensure precise placement.

Colour Schemes:

There are three examples to choose from, two Federal German Navy Mk.101s in upper extra dark sea grey over sky scheme from 1965-66 and 1959 respectively. The third aircraft is an Indian navy FGA Mk.6 in upper extra dark sea grey over white undersides from 300 Sqn 'White Tigers' INS Vikrant, 1960.

Decals:

I said in the INBOX review they were produced by MPM/Propagteam, but they are actually printed by Cartograf and are thus in absolutely perfect colour register, with a small amount of stencilling. The Luftwaffe style crosses and Indian roundels look exquisite. The decals need only a short amount of soaking time and conform to the model surface very well. The only drawback is they didn't like any rough handling at all, and had a tendency to curl up.

Accuracy:

The instructions quote the same dimensions as the ones supplied with the FGA.4/6 kit but the only separately quoted dimensions for the Mk.100/101 I could find were in a magazine which quoted a shorter length, however, the only external difference that I am able to find is the taller tail fin, so I went with the instructions as being more accurate. Converting the dimensions of the model to full scale it would come in at about 11.8 m and 12.0 m respectively, which is highly acceptable or around the 10 cm difference in real life. The model captures the look of the Sea Hawk very well so in all other respects I didn't have too many qualms with it.

Overall Recommendation:

A straight forward limited run style of project for those who have a few of these kits under their belt. Other than the tailplanes, there are basically no alignment pins or tabs so everything must be butt joined together. It looks the part, and I would highly recommend to all but those not confident with limited run style of kits. It is certainly a massive leap over the old Frog and Airfix and their reboxings by other manufacturers.

Related Reviews:-

MPM 1/72 Hawker Sea Hawk

Related INBOX Reviews:-

MPM 1/72 Hawker Sea Hawk

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