Special Hobby Hawker Tempest MkV “High Tech” edition 1/32 (a quick look in the box)
Most people here will build one special hobby model in their life time. Not many will build two however in fairness SH offer the builder the chance to build some otherwise unavailable subjects. They are by their nature going to be short run with no frills attached but then to some the idea of putting all the parts in a box with a tube of glue, shaking the box for 3 minutes and opening it to find a nicely assembled model is attractive and for these people God gave us Tamiya.
Some of us however need a challenge and a sense of achievement! As kids we jumped in the puddle not walked around it, we climbed over the fence while other used the gate and we held our hands over candles to prove we could take pain…….Nowadays we don’t need to do this, Companies like SH put pain in a box for us and some of us still have to prove we can take it.
But wait !! this box is full of niceness! the mouldings are very sharp, the clear parts thin, extra, detail is added with resin wheels, gun sights and seat. There are PE frets for seat belt buckles and the harnesses themselves are micro fibre cloth. There are 3 sheets of decals and one sheet of masks for those who have trouble with canopy frames. Surface detail is ultra-fine and what’s this ?? all parts now have locating pins.
In short Special Hobby has come of age with a cracking model for the 21st century of an aircraft that has been over looked by the shake and bake producers over the years in 1/32.
------------------------------------
What can I say about the Tempest that we don’t already know? Well basically Sydney Camm designed a brilliant aircraft called the Typhoon but the tail kept falling off it and the cockpit also kept filling up with carbon monoxide from the engine sending pilots of to sleep with disastrous results, so in 1943 Sydney Camm called in The great Roland Beamont who had tamed the Typhoon in combat to become Test Pilot for the new Typhoon, now called Tempest..The cockpit still filled with fumes but at least the tail now stayed firmly attached. Its wings were slightly clipped and it had a much broader tail. Similarities between Sydney Camms Hurricane of 10 years earlier are to be seen with an internal tubular Skeleton cockpit with foot boards and no floor and massive thick wings that provided incredible stability even with four 20mm cannons spitting out 800 rounds while Eight 60lb rockets designed to modify heavy armour were launched. That said I don’t think the Tempest actually carried rockets during WWII ?….. The Tempest became a low level fighter and ground attack machine proving very effective against the new Jet ME262 and at knocking down V1’s. Americans who flew it described it as roughly similar to the later variants of the P47 and in fact the top scoring Tempest pilot was an American flying with the RAF who had joined the Canadian airforce in 1941, Squadron Leader David C. "Foobs" Fairbanks DFC. Anyway this is a look in a box not a history lesson.
The box is the std tray and lid and holds a plastic bag with eight comprehensive sprues, the fuselage moulding has been designed to take either the fantastic Napier Sabre H 24 engine with the distinctive chin radiator or the later radial Bristol Centaurus engine, only one option is included in the kit but I am sure the post war Radial version will follow.
There is nothing to complicate this kit, no engine or flaps and no gun bays (Eduard do excellent PE flaps) so you are getting a basic shape but interior surface detail in the undercarriage bays is very good, front and back as are the cockpit side walls. As already mentioned surface detail is the best I have seen for a long while.
Surface detail, remember this is a huge macro lens and in reality some of this can only be seen in the right light. this is not massive overkill on the rivets, its not a rivet monster..
Wheel well interior parts
Cockpit side walls and note the locating pin for fuselage halves.
Early and late 4 and 5 spoke, large and small wheels in resin
More resin
Harness and buckles, the black background is the mask sheet
To the kit parts i will be adding the Eduard PE flaps and cockpit detail as well as metal undercarriage which i am told is a good move because of the weight of the kit on the std plastic legs.
Only question is, does it all fit together ? Something i will be answering in a build here soon as i get some time.
Cheers
Paddy
Most people here will build one special hobby model in their life time. Not many will build two however in fairness SH offer the builder the chance to build some otherwise unavailable subjects. They are by their nature going to be short run with no frills attached but then to some the idea of putting all the parts in a box with a tube of glue, shaking the box for 3 minutes and opening it to find a nicely assembled model is attractive and for these people God gave us Tamiya.
Some of us however need a challenge and a sense of achievement! As kids we jumped in the puddle not walked around it, we climbed over the fence while other used the gate and we held our hands over candles to prove we could take pain…….Nowadays we don’t need to do this, Companies like SH put pain in a box for us and some of us still have to prove we can take it.
But wait !! this box is full of niceness! the mouldings are very sharp, the clear parts thin, extra, detail is added with resin wheels, gun sights and seat. There are PE frets for seat belt buckles and the harnesses themselves are micro fibre cloth. There are 3 sheets of decals and one sheet of masks for those who have trouble with canopy frames. Surface detail is ultra-fine and what’s this ?? all parts now have locating pins.
In short Special Hobby has come of age with a cracking model for the 21st century of an aircraft that has been over looked by the shake and bake producers over the years in 1/32.
------------------------------------
What can I say about the Tempest that we don’t already know? Well basically Sydney Camm designed a brilliant aircraft called the Typhoon but the tail kept falling off it and the cockpit also kept filling up with carbon monoxide from the engine sending pilots of to sleep with disastrous results, so in 1943 Sydney Camm called in The great Roland Beamont who had tamed the Typhoon in combat to become Test Pilot for the new Typhoon, now called Tempest..The cockpit still filled with fumes but at least the tail now stayed firmly attached. Its wings were slightly clipped and it had a much broader tail. Similarities between Sydney Camms Hurricane of 10 years earlier are to be seen with an internal tubular Skeleton cockpit with foot boards and no floor and massive thick wings that provided incredible stability even with four 20mm cannons spitting out 800 rounds while Eight 60lb rockets designed to modify heavy armour were launched. That said I don’t think the Tempest actually carried rockets during WWII ?….. The Tempest became a low level fighter and ground attack machine proving very effective against the new Jet ME262 and at knocking down V1’s. Americans who flew it described it as roughly similar to the later variants of the P47 and in fact the top scoring Tempest pilot was an American flying with the RAF who had joined the Canadian airforce in 1941, Squadron Leader David C. "Foobs" Fairbanks DFC. Anyway this is a look in a box not a history lesson.
The box is the std tray and lid and holds a plastic bag with eight comprehensive sprues, the fuselage moulding has been designed to take either the fantastic Napier Sabre H 24 engine with the distinctive chin radiator or the later radial Bristol Centaurus engine, only one option is included in the kit but I am sure the post war Radial version will follow.
There is nothing to complicate this kit, no engine or flaps and no gun bays (Eduard do excellent PE flaps) so you are getting a basic shape but interior surface detail in the undercarriage bays is very good, front and back as are the cockpit side walls. As already mentioned surface detail is the best I have seen for a long while.
Surface detail, remember this is a huge macro lens and in reality some of this can only be seen in the right light. this is not massive overkill on the rivets, its not a rivet monster..
Wheel well interior parts
Cockpit side walls and note the locating pin for fuselage halves.
Early and late 4 and 5 spoke, large and small wheels in resin
More resin
Harness and buckles, the black background is the mask sheet
To the kit parts i will be adding the Eduard PE flaps and cockpit detail as well as metal undercarriage which i am told is a good move because of the weight of the kit on the std plastic legs.
Only question is, does it all fit together ? Something i will be answering in a build here soon as i get some time.
Cheers
Paddy