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ACADEMY 1:72 P-40E WARHAWK
Reviewer:
Darrell Thompson
(rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:
20 September 2002
Kit Number: 1671
Reviewer: Darrell Thompson
Kit Review Submitted: Sept 2002
The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was a development of Curtiss P-36 Hawk, the P-36’s radial engine being replaced with the Allison V-1710 inline engine giving the P-40 it’s smooth lines. The next major change in the appearance was the P-40D which had a newer version of the V-1710 which was slightly bigger, this along with the nose mounted guns of the early P-40’s being removed (just leaving the four .50 calibre machine guns in the wings), changed the look of the front end considerably. Other changes included the windscreen being changed and the windows aft of the cockpit were enlarged to try and improve rearward visibility.
It wasn’t long before Curtiss added two more .50 calibre guns in the wings to make a total of six and it then became the P-40E. 2,320 P-40E’s were produced, 1,500 of those being built as P-40E-1’s which had the ability to carry bombs under the wings. The E-1’s were all supplied to the British as Kittyhawk 1A’s, although some later returned to US service. Some later E-1’s had a dorsal fin added to correct stability problems.
© Darrell Thompson 2002
The box contains twenty-five parts on three sprues, crisply moulded in Academy’s usual medium grey plastic. The panel lines are finely recessed and the control surfaces have delicate raised ribbing on them. The other sprue contains the eight nicely moulded clear parts, only five of which are used for the P-40E.
The instructions come on a one-piece foldout sheet detailing construction in eleven steps. Four view drawings are provided for the painting and decaling guide, the third colour scheme being supplied on a separate sheet. Paints are given in colour name and FS numbers for four of the colours, the rest just being named.
The cockpit consists of a floor, rear bulkhead, seat rudder pedals, control column, emergency hydraulic pump handle, sidewall detail and the instrument panel. The cockpit is fine if your going to keep the canopy closed, I just made a few small modifications to bring it up to scratch. The instrument panel has raised detail and looks good with a bit of careful painting. The sidewall detail is moulded on the fuselage sides and all that needs adding is a throttle lever.
The seat is the incorrect type for the E and needs the top rounding off, I also removed the thick sides and replaced them with plasticard, and I also added the lip on the seat pan as well as the angled section at the back of the pan. A couple of pieces of plastic rod for the support structure at the back of the seat and some etched seat belts and the seat looks much better.
I fashioned a headrest out of plastic card for the cockpit; one is included but is not a type I have seen in a P-40 so I went for the common rectangular type. After assembling the fuselage halves I realized that the instrument panel sits too low in the cockpit, this is due to the fact that the instrument coming is quite thick, so it would be best to thin this, or if you were going for accuracy remove it altogether as on the real thing you could see the back of the instrument panel.
The area behind the cockpit, which the glazing covers has, a couple of vertical lines either side scribed in it. Looking at my reference photos it looks like these lines where not present so I filled them. Also in this area there is a scribed circle to represent the landing gear warning horn on both sides. Fill the one on the right hand side, as there was only one on the left. I also used a couple of twists of a drill on the remaining circle to represent the recessed horn.
While doing this I also filled the fuel filler cap on the right-hand side just below the cockpit, as there was only one on the left side.
A nice representation of the radiators is provided which is fitted in the front of the fuselage before gluing the halves together, unfortunately this is only done for the front and no detail is provided for the back of the radiators, but once the radiator exhaust flaps are in place you can’t see much in there anyway. The fit of the fuselage halves is good with no filler required.
The join between the two upper and single piece lower wing is around the edge of the wings, which thankfully doesn’t leave the trailing edge too thick. The fit of the wings to the fuselage is pretty good and just needed some slightly sanding to match the top surface to the wing fillet. Also the front of the wing to fuselage join required a little filling to blend it in, this is because the join is not on a panel line.
One small thing that is missing is the ID light on the fillet at the trailing edge of the right wing. I simiply added this by making a shallow hole with a drill, painted it silver than added some two clear epoxy to make the lens.
A cockpit cooling intake is provide by a cutout in the top of the lower wing where it joins the fuselage at the wing root. The one on the left wing root should be filled as the P-40E only had the one on the right. The shape of the remaining hole needs a bit of attention as it should be round not the odd shape provided. I used a larger drill to make a hole then inserted some appropriately size plastic tubing.
The kit comes with the round style exhausts only, so if you where modelling a later P-40E you would have to find the fishtail exhausts elsewhere. I found the round exhausts to be slightly too long, so before fitting them I thinned the backing plate a little as well as shortening the exhausts stubs themselves.
The canopy is where the first slight problem arises. Academy have made the sliding canopy too high, the problem here being that it stands a lot higher than the top of the fuselage spine, which gives a very strange look. On the real aircraft the canopy does sit higher but only buy the thickness of the canopy, but as usual in 1/72 scale the transparentices are quite a bit thicker than they should be. It’s almost like Academy were trying to make the canopy so it could be posed in the open position, though it is slightly to thick to do this well.
© Darrell Thompson 2002
My solution to this problem was to sand down the bottom edge of the canopy until the top was very slightly higher than the spine. Of course you then need to do the same to the windshield to bring it down level. Now because the canopy is tapered from the bottom to the top the material sanded away means that the canopy is now narrower at the bottom edge than before. I overcame this when I attached the canopy by holding it down with some pressure to spread the bottom of the canopy and fixed it in place with superglue. I still ended up with a bit of a ledge at the fuselage sides but it looks better than the original canopy.
The glazing behind the cockpit has the support braces which stand quite proud on the outside. To improve the look of these I sanded them down till they were nice and thin.
The other part of the kit which doesn’t look quite right is the spinner. The real P-40 spinner has a slight curve on the taper of the spinner. The kit spinner looks to fat having a more pronounced curve on the taper. To correct this I mounted the spinner centrally in the chuck of a power drill, spun it up and used a sanding block to thin it down.
The undercarriage is adequate for this scale and the wheels, which have fine tread detail on them, come with or without the wheels covers. The wheel bays have nice rib detail on but as quite often in this scale they are too shallow. The undercarriage doors are quite simple; I thinned the front and back edges of the main doors to give a more realistic appearance.
A bomb or drop tank is included for the centerline, both are nicely done but it is difficult to blend in the braces once attached. Academy supply the braces attached to a small part of the bomb or tank which then really needs to be sanded and filled. Since the braces are too thick anyway I removed the small round anti-sway braces, thinned the main braces and once everything was painted and the tank attached I used small pieces of stretched sprue glued in place to simulate the smaller braces.
Three colour options are provided in the kit, all with the standard neutral grey on the underneath of the aircraft. The first is an 11th FS aircraft in all over olive drab, as pictured on the box. The second is a 9th FS in a dark green and sand camouflage. The last is a RAAF Kitty Hawk 1A in dark green and dark earth camouflage.
The decals themselves, contained in there own cellophane cover, are to Academy’s usual modern standard; sharply printed, perfectly on register and glossy. Not too many stencils are provided, but that’s usual in this scale, some of them have the letters printed a bit too thick making them unreadable.
For my model I decided to use SuperScale’s sheet 72-675 and the markings Preddy’s aircraft of the 9th FS – Tarheel.
© Darrell Thompson 2002
The overall dimensions for the real thing are length 31ft 2in and wingspan 37ft 3.5in.The model comes out spot on for length but appears to be approximately 6 inches short for the wingspan, which isn’t noticeable and with the canopy and spinner adjustments it looks just like a P-40E to me.
Overall a very nice kit of the P-40. Slightly let down by the problem with the canopy which is a bit fiddly to correct but it was still an enjoyable build. I’m sure I will build more as I have some nice VVS decals waiting for the P-40E. Recommended.
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