Hasegawa

1/72 E-2C Hawkeye 2000 "U. S. Navy"

Kit Number: 01561

Reviewed by  Mike Hinderliter, IPMS# 45124

MSRP: $59.95 Distributor website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com THE AIRCRAFT The Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is an all-weather, aircraft carrier-based tactical Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft. This aircraft was to replace the E-1 Tracer in 1970 and was the first designed for the AEW early warning and command and control function. It has been continually updated all the way to the D model that had its first flight test in 2007 and will have its evaluation in 2011. The latest generation of the E-2C is the Hawkeye 2000 that incorporates the latest upgrades in its internal systems. The most noticeable improvement is the eight-bladed NP2000 propeller. This has always been one of my favorite aircraft because of the way it looks and how it sounds when taking off. I remember when I was an Air Force cadet and an E-2C flew in to Ogden. We were on a tour and the regular Air Force guys set the cadet up and told me I could walk over to it. Well, as hazing goes security laid me out on the ground for getting too close. Anyway the fellows had a good laugh on the newbie that day. THE KIT The box contains 174 parts, and decals for two aircraft The props and radome are connected with the famous Hasegawa rubber grommets. Parts are well formed and molded in grey plastic with no flash. This kit is a new tooling and, after seeing how clean the parts are, I believe it. I really like the way that the wing is molded with support sprues, in varying heights, to prevent it from warping. One thing I wish they had done was to have an option for folding the wings. Maybe Aires or Quickboost might take on this task. ASSEMBLY Cockpit The cockpit is well detailed but also has decals for the interior. I thought they were so good that I dry brushed this area. The instructions call for 30g of weight to be added. I put some fishing weight around the nose area. Later, when I checked it with the radome on, it went right to its tail I then added some sheet lead behind the cockpit and this fixed the problem. The canopy is rather large and is mostly painted. I used Eduard Mask CX236 for this and it really helped out. See the review on the mask here.

Fuselage The fuselage halves went together well and needed almost no putty the front wheel well is molded under the cockpit assembly. I didn’t use the porthole glass because I prefer to use Testors ® Clear Parts Cement and Window Maker for this. Wings and tail The wing had no warping at all, which I attributed to the way that Hasegawa molded it on the sprue. All three wing pieces fit together very well and fit tightly onto the fuselage. The flaps have the option of being up or down. The tail assembly is made up of ten pieces that also fit together very well and fit nicely to the rear of the plane. Radome and mount After seeing that the mounting pedestal for the radome had five parts and had to connect seven legs to the fuselage, I was a little worried. But it actually all lined up well and went right into place smoothly. Thank you Hasegawa. This part also makes a great handle, for when you are adding the little bits and decals and this bird is loaded with little bits. The radome halves also went together perfectly and needed no putty. As you can see, I am really pleased with this kit. Landing gear The landing gear is very detailed and has a lot of small pieces. There are so many so close together that the instruction arrows all seem to point to the same place. The one good fix to this is that they have a photo on the side of the box and it clearly shows the landing gear, which answered any questions that I had. The landing gear doors that can sometimes be a nightmare have pegs that line them up where they go.

Props The Hawkeye 2000 has the newer eight bladed props so that means you get to decal 16 blades with three decals each. This is going to take awhile. Be careful doing this because there are different blade tip decals provided for each of the two versions. It might be easier to paint on the leading edges and tips. But the decals look pretty good after it is all over. Little bits The Hawkeye is just covered in small antennae and mounts for its HF long wire antenna. At this point of the build the carpet monster is just sitting up begging like a dog for a treat. Thankfully I got all of them in place and I used a piece of wire to make the long trip all over this guy. There is no instruction for doing the wire but it is pretty easy to find it using photos. PAINTING The kit has instructions and decals for two versions: BuNo 165649, VAW-117 (Wallbangers) USS Nimitz, Feb 08 and BuNo 165813, VAW-125 (Tigertail), USS Dwight D Eisenhower, 2007. I picked the first one because a friend in our club has a son that flies with them. The main color for the plane is gloss gull grey (FS 16440) all over, which makes the painting pretty easy. I only had flat gull grey FS 36640 but I sprayed it with Future to gloss it up after everything was complete. Inside, the wheel wells and landing gear were painted white (FS 17875) and when ever red was needed for small markings and trim it was (FS 11136). The tail of the Nimitz bird has a more colorful tail and used blue (FS 15050) this will make up for the easy fuselage painting. That’s right you don’t get away with anything. Now break out the masking tape.

DECALS The decals went on smoothly with no problems. I was worried at first because of the size of the bird decals on the front nose sides and the one on the radome. The other decal that always makes me worried is the prop warning stripes that go all the way around the aircraft. I used the Micro-Sol and Micro-Set system for putting the decals on. The one thing about Navy planes is that there are warnings and markings everywhere. I can’t believe that I actually got all of the "no step" decals done. The decals were all in good register and there was no silvering. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS Recommended. If you’re looking for a nice kit of a Hawkeye, this is it. This kit kept me busy with all that is involved on a Hawkeye I’m really glad to do a kit that didn’t have a lot of problems. This one had great fit, good instructions, and the decals worked very well. Thanks to Dragon USA and Hasegawa for the review kit, and IPMS/USA for the opportunity to build this kit.