Revell 1/72 Curtiss P-40K

REVELL 1:72 CURTISS P-40K

Reviewer: Dave McDougall (crustyoldseadog@aol.com)
Kit Review submitted: 24 August 2001

Curtiss P-40K (Revell 1/72^nd skill level 3 kit #04122)

Aircraft:
The P-40 was a development of the P-36 with a liquid-cooled engine, known to the manufacturer as Hawk 81 and to the British as Tomahawk. The P-40 was never the equal of its opponents, but nevertheless served throughout WWII. It most famous user was the AVG, better known as the 'Flying Tigers', a group of American pilots hired by the Kuomintang to fight the Japanese. The P-40D model introduced a strongly modified nose and a new engine; this version was known as Hawk 87 to the manufacturer and Kittyhawk to the British. The P-40 was sturdy and had good diving characteristics, but was outperformed by modern fighters, despite continuous improvement. Later P-40s had lengthened fuselages, and a lighter structure. Curtiss managed to improve the performance of their airframe by replacing the engine with a Packard-made Rolls Royce Merlin. The result was the P-40F, or Kittyhawk II in British parlance. The next model, P-40K or Kittyhawk III, reverted to an Allison engine, albeit a more powerful V-1710-73, capable of delivering 1,150 hp on take-off. Only twenty-one of this type were delivered to the RAF.

The Kit:
There are no surprises about the contents of this kit. Open the end of the sturdy box Revell have supplied and you’ll find several sprues of injection moulded plastic (neatly secured in a sealed bag), several sheets of instructions and a decal sheet.

This isn’t a big kit. You get 38 bits of injection moulded plastic. 35 of these are light grey in colour with the remaining 3 being clear cockpit pieces. The mouldings are nice and clean with no trace of any flash, sink or injection pin marks anywhere. The detail on the various bits is quite reasonable, with nicely engraved panel lines. However, it’s not up to the standard of the latest Tamigawa releases by any means. All of the parts have a slightly “soft” look to them as though they could do with being more crisply moulded. Very reminiscent of Matchbox kits; so much so in fact that at first I thought this was a re-boxing of one of their kits. Apparently, however, this isn’t so. The three clear parts that make up the cockpit are a bit on the thick side but are free of any distortion.

Addendum supplied by Robert Allen on the Origins of this kit:
Dave wonders in his review if the kit is a reboxing of a Matchbox kit, and correctly concludes that it isn't. It is a reboxing, though, of a kit (and company) that came and went so quickly that you missed it if you blinked. The Revell P-40K was originally put out by a Czech company called Kovozavody Semily. I believe the plastic is the same, the only difference being that the original had (unusably bad) decals for one USAAF P-40K based in China. The company may or may not have been the same as Vista, the firm that put out the excellent Fairey Fulmar that is also now issued by Revell.

Boxart of the Kovozavody Semily supplied by Robert Allen

Instructions:
The instructions consist of two, four-side sheets slightly smaller than A4 size. Once you’ve deducted the usual multi-lingual warnings, symbol guide etc. you’re left with four sides of actual instructions; two of which comprise the painting guide. Interesting to note that there’s no actual information about the P-40K at all; so if you didn’t know what one was before you bought this kit, you’d be none the wiser afterwards!

The actual build instructions consist of 15 stages; more than adequate for a simple kit like this. I basically followed them as given and didn’t encounter any problems.

Construction:
As is usual with most kits, I started with the cockpit interior. This is pretty basic, comprising chair, stick and instrument panel. There’s no detail on the inside of the cockpit fuselage although you do get a nice decal for the instrument panel.

The cockpit sub-assembly fitted neatly in the two fuselage halves. However, the air-intake gizmo (part 22) was a very poor fit. - This needs to be fitted inside front of the fuselage. I fiddled around with it for ages trying to get it correctly lined up with the front part of the fuselage halves. The problem with it is due to the fact that it’s too small. Eventually I managed to get a semi-satisfactory fit, but I had to use some putty to avoid having a visible gap.

The fuselage itself went together well enough with just a little bit of cosmetic sanding to tidy up the joins.

I tackled the wings next. These comprise a one piece bottom surface of the wing with the top surface provided in two parts. These too went together without any problems. However when I came to slot the fuselage into the gap left in the completed wing sub-assembly, I found that although the fuselage slotted in nicely, there was a noticeable step down at the join between the top wing surface and the fuselage. This was gently sanded down until I’d got a more even join. Not particularly difficult, but time-consuming.

I also fitted the tail at this point and found that this had the same problem. Out with the sandpaper again…

As I was building my model wheels down, assembling the undercarriage was the next job to do. There’s a pretty basic representation of the undercarriage with no wheel well sides or detail. However, a nice touch is that the wheels are two part, with the tires being separate.

The instructions tell you to fit the wing wheels prior to doing the undercarriage doors, but I thought it a better idea to do them the other way around. I didn’t have any problems with the fit. However, note that if you want to build your model wheels-up, the instructions indicate that you’ll have to remove about two-thirds of the wheel axle.

And that’s basically the kit finished. Put together the propeller and spinner, test fit the canopy (no problems here as it’s a good fit – makes a change from some of the kits I’ve built!) and that’s more or less it.

You have the option of fitting a either a central mounted drop tank or a bomb. (I went for the former.) Both are quite nice.

Versions & Decals:
You have a choice of two paint schemes for this aircraft. The first is a Kittyhawk III “No.2 ‘Flying Cheetah’ Squadron, South African Air Force: No.233 Wing, 211 Group, RAF Desert Air Force Western (North African) Desert Theatre, 1942. Flown by Major D. B. Hauptfleisch, AFC.” Or you can choose a P-40K of the “China Air Task Force, U.S. Army Air Force, Kunming. China, late Summer 1942.”

Colour call-outs are given as Revell paint colour codes and as colour names (e.g. Light Green).

The decals are very nice indeed. Crisply printed with good colour reproduction, they went on easily with no fuss.

Accuracy:
As for accuracy, well, I’m not a great fan of number crunching; being very much of the “if it looks right, then it is” school of thought. In this regard, I can report that the Revell kit stands up very well in capturing the look of a P-40K.

Overall:
“Adequate” I think, sums this kit up well. It’s relatively cheap and easy to build but lacks the sort of details you’ll get with some other manufacturer’s kits. If you want a simple kit that succeeds in being a basic representation of the real thing then this will do nicely. If, however, you’re the sort of modeller who simply must have accurately modelled seat belts in a 1/72^nd scale kit, then I’d advise you to steer clear of this one.

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