Italeri

1/48 B.A.C. Hawk T.Mk1

Kit Number: 2669

Reviewed by  Dennie Adams, IPMS# 34396

MSRP: $47.00 Kit distributed by MRC/Academy: www.modelrectifier.com Italeri has released a newly-tooled kit of the British Hawk trainer. The kit includes four sprues of nicely-engraved, light gray styrene, a clear sprue with very little distortion and a photo-etch sheet that includes seatbelts, instrument panels and mirrors. There is also a well-printed decal sheet with five different variants. It also features dropped flaps as an option. Construction is straightforward and naturally starts with the cockpit. The five-piece ejection seats go together easily and look great with the addition of the etched seatbelts. The unfortunate lack of a pull handle does take away from the seat and I was surprised by the omission. Using the decals for the instrument faces and adding the photoetch panel face gives a good representation of the instrument panel and when added to the tub and the seats you get a good basic cockpit. For the super-detailer there‘s room for improvement but I found no aftermarket items listed on the internet yet.

After the cockpit tub was completed I painted the fuselage halves the appropriate colors. Dark ghost gray worked well in the cockpit sidewall areas and white in the intakes. After adding the nose gear well and the completed and painted exhaust section there are a couple of inserts to place, one in the nose and one just ahead of the vertical stabilizer. Add the weight above the nose gear and then align and glue in the cockpit then assemble the fuselage including the intakes, ventral fins and tail planes as well as the fuselage inserts. Once the fuselage was done, I built the wings and added them and the main gear insert. They give you two options for the underwing stores, fuel tanks or a set of sidewinders as well as a centerline gunpod.. I chose fuel tanks and attached them along with the dropped flaps since I had picked an overall gloss black version all these parts could be glued on and the whole airframe could be masked and painted all at one time. With everything that’s going to be black assembled, the antennas and probe are attached and let the painting begin. I used Alclad II’s gloss black under base and set it aside to dry for a couple of days. Once it was dry I had a bright, shiny black bird. I unmasked the model and began to decal. My choice for this little beauty was listed as version B, RAF 4th Flying Training Squadron, Valley, 2001. It has a cool tiger’s head on the tail and looked really sharp. The decals went on well with just a little Microset for assistance. All that’s left is to add the gear and gear doors and the navigation lights and you’re there.

Conclusion: A sweet kit of subject that is overlooked in this scale (trainers). It features good moldings, no real fit issues, some nice extras, such as the poseable flaps and the photo-etch enhancements. It was a real treat to build and a I definitely recommend it. My thanks to MRC/Academy and Italeri for the chance to review this one.

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