Hasegawa

1/32 Fw 190D-9 "Yellow Tail"

Kit Number: 08176

Reviewed by  Fred Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $43.90 Review kit courtesy of Dragon USA www.dragonmodelsusa.com The Fw 190- Dora may well have been the best mass-produced German piston engine fighter aircraft of World War Two. And, other than the Ta 152 H, certainly one of the best looking in this Reviewer's opinion.

This kit is, as far as I am aware, only the second release of this kit in since its 2003 inception. It is very well engineered and the fit is superb. One of the areas overlooked by some model manufacturers is the wheel well area under the fuselage. This kit has pretty very acceptable detail in that area As usual, construction begins in the cockpit. Interior detail is what we have come to expect from Hasegawa in this scale. The instrument and side panel detail is raised and supplemented with very colorful and precise decals. The decals are very thin, so great care should be taken. I suggest you separate the main panel decal into upper and lower pieces for a better fit. You may not get a second chance. I enhanced the cockpit with a set of Eduard Luftwaffe seatbelts (Eduard #32 507). The shoulder harness seems to me to be a little too long but I can live with it. Next is the assembly for the wheel wells under the fuselage. These parts have to be painted before assembly but when the area is done it looks very busy. The cockpit and well assembly fit into the fuselage halves and the halves join perfectly. Don't overlook the boxes for the exhaust stacks. Next, the tail assembly. Instructions say to place the tail wheel strut before gluing the halves together. I found that it would fit in place after assembly, so I suggest waiting till after painting so as not to break the strut. Super glue will ensure a quick placement. Attach the tail to the fuselage and move on to the nose. You are given a choice of open or closed cowl flaps. I chose to leave the air intake off until after the wings are in place just in case there was any sanding to do to the wing root area. Proceeding to the wing, I ran into the only problem I experienced. After the wheel well is glued to the bottom wing and the upper parts glued into place, I started installing the flaps. These are made to be installed in the lowered position, but I wanted them up. I cut the mounting tabs off, but the flaps would not fit. The leading edge of the flap is too thick, and the flap span is more than the associated cavity. Both dimensions have to be sanded down. The wing then fits to the fuselage with no real problem. The builder has a choice of two canopies, the semi blown or the standard Fw hood. The windshield fits into a pocket perfectly. I painted the canopies and installed them as the last step and the fit is very good. I was going to paint the D-9 with Polly Scale acrylics but mine seemed to have thickened with age (the paint guys, the paint….). I went on to Model Master and Humbrol but could seem to paint without a lot of splatter. I came to find out my CO2 regulator had gone bad and wasn't spraying at the pressure I wanted. I got a new set of gauges and repainted. I believe the paint color callouts may be in error - Hasegawa calls RLM 82 Light Green and RLM 83 as Dark Green, whereas Model Master calls RLM 82 Dunkelgrun (Dark Green) and RLM 83 Lightgrun (Light Green). The painting instruction shows the darker green to be on the front of the fuselage so I took Model Masters colors for fact. However the Model Master RLM 83 appears to me to be too dark so I went with an old Humbrol tin of USM 1, which is FS 34097. The only Duck Egg Green I had was another Humbrol tin of HB 5, Sky Type S. A coating of Testors Gloss Coat was applied in preparation for decaling. Decaling started at the tail and moved forward. As I said earlier, the decals are very thin. The backing paper has to be down on the model surface when the decal slides off, or it will curl up under the paper. I used all of the decals called for and ended up with some I couldn't locate on the instructions. My only problem appeared on the upper wings. I ended up with a minute area of silvering under the white crosses. In the final analysis this was a very easy build. Except for the landing flaps everything fit well. The Fw 190 D9 Yellow Tail will fit into nicely my collection of 1/32 scale models. I sure would hope that Hasegawa comes out with a Ta 152 C and/or H to follow the D-9. It wouldn't take too much engineering using the D-9 as a start. Thanks to Hasegawa, via DragonUSA for providing the Reviewers' Corps with the model.

Information, images, and all other items placed electronically on this site are the intellectual property of IPMS/USA ®.