Hasegawa

1/48 Kittyhawk Mk IV (P-40N)

Kit Number: 09732

Reviewed by  Fred Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $18.50 The P-40 series of aircraft were outmoded and outclassed when they went into service, but for a considerable length of time they were the best the USA had to offer its armed forces and that of its allies. This Hasegawa kit has been proven to be the best P-40 kit in 1/48th scale. But it does have a few small drawbacks. On opening the kit I found approximately 85 pieces on four large and four small gray sprues and one of clear. The clear sprue was in its own separate bag. The clear parts consist of three canopy pieces, gun sights and lenses for all of the formation and navigation lights.

For those of you who have not inspected the Hasegawa line of P-40's, the kits are designed so that with the inclusion of the appropriate parts several different variants can be built. The main difference is the long or short tail and the canopy styles. I know of the E, K and N variants that have been released to date but hope to see the F, L, and M variants some day soon. Construction of course begins in the cockpit, and what a marvel of mold engineering it is. The sidewalls' fit to the floor and rear bulkhead is very snug and the detail rivals some resin cockpits I have worked with. The only thing lacking is seat belts. The decals for the instrument panel are very sharp and snuggled down beautifully with the help of Micro Sol. After painting and assembly the cockpit mounts to either fuselage half with two pins on each side of the floor into receiver holes in the fuselage sides. A perfect fit. The fuselage halves fit with a bare minimum of seam work. You may want to delay placing the gun sight until later but don't forget it. (See photos)

The tailpieces for the N variant were assembled and glued into the opening at the rear of the fuselage. The fit is not the best I have seen, but with care it can be handled. The last parts of the fuselage are the leading edge of the radiator intakes and the rear cockpit decking of the N variant. This is then set aside to dry before cleaning up the seams The wing is comprised of one lower and two upper pieces. The access panels under the wings for the guns, wheel well bays, gun barrels and domed covers for the leading edge of the wing were also glued into place. The domed covers didn't fit well, but then that may just be me. After the seams on the fuselage and the wings have been sanded they can be glued together. I found a small gap between the wing and fuselage, but stretching a rubber band over the fuselage from wing tip to wing tip and adding a little Pro-Weld fixed it with just an minimum of sanding. The gun sight and canopy parts were then attached with Testors Clear Part Cement. The canopy was masked with Tamiya tape, and the model was given a primer coat to check for flaws. My method of weathering may not appeal to many modelers but it works for me. I have some previously mixed paint that is the color of cardboard. On the upper surfaces I painted several panels and access hatches with the tan paint and then masked them. Then with a fine brush I picked out panel lines with thinned flat black paint. I then sprayed on a coat of thinned Olive Drab to cover any of the tan overspray and most of the black paint. Then I remove the masks from the panels and finish spraying the Olive Drab, taking care not completely covers the tanned panels and the darkened areas of the panel lines. The bottom of the model has the panel lines treated with black paint as well and painted a thinned Neutral Gray, taking care to leave enough black showing to indicate some usage. (See photos) Hasegawa decals have almost always presented a problem for me. Sometimes they are not correctly sized, are the wrong color shade and large ones refuse to slide into position no matter what you do. That was the case with this set. One of the roundels for the underside of the wing folded under itself when it slid off of the paper. Several attempts to unfold it while on the wing were unsuccessful, so I dipped the wing tip into the water to soak it off and then gently slid it back onto a piece of paper and removed it from the water. It was still folded under and in trying to unfold it, it broke at the fold. I cut an edge off of a British roundel and managed to cover the damaged area. So everything was now painted and decaled. The kit was placed on an empty kit box along with another P-40N on top of a few other boxes on the floor. Before I had started on the P-40's I had started a 1/48th A-20 Havoc and had applied putty in some pretty bad seams and then I trapped the wing of the A-20 between a couple of kits on top of the library. Then I had to make a trip to Oklahoma City with a good friend to help him clear his house so he could complete the sales transaction. When I got home the following Sunday I found a catastrophic event had happened. The weight of the A-20 had caused the kits that the wing was trapped between to topple off the shelf on to the almost-completed P-40 Mk. IV. The A-20 had one wing and a stabilizer broken off, and the fuselage broken off just behind the cockpit. A Revell 1/144 Airbus A-380 kit fell on the P-40 and broke the left wing off at the wing root and through the bottom middle of the wing. The other P-40 was apparently not hit and suffered no damage. After studying the P-40 I found the break was pretty clean, so I decided to try to repair the damage. I got a good tight fit, applied some Ambroid Pro-Weld into the break areas, and held it together for a few minutes. About six hours later I gently cut and sanded the glue away and repainted the damaged areas. The damage to the wing root is just barely obvious, and the bottom is almost invisible. Part of the cooling flaps and one tail wheel door are lost and there is a small hole in the left leading edge of the wing fillet. (See photos)

So then, what is the final verdict on the kit? The finished kit looks pretty impressive despite the damage from the crash. The engineering on these kits is superb. The cockpit is a fine example. The kit was designed to allow for other variants to be produced off this basic kit. Look for other variants such as the P-40 E and K. Hopefully sometime in the future we will see the F, L and M variants as well. The kit comes with two marking options, as well as a choice of a fuel tank or bomb. The only places I had any problems were the fit of the N tail to the fuselage and the fit of the guns to the leading edge of the wind. The fits here were less than perfect but then that could be me. All in all, I can recommend this kit to one and all. Thanks to IPMS/USA for allowing me to review the kit, and to Hasegawa and to Dragon, their US importers, for a fine product.

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