Hasegawa

1/72 F-117A Night Hawk "Gray Dragon"

Kit Number: 00833

Reviewed by  Phil Peterson, IPMS# 8739

MSRP: $23.95 Distributor website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The kit has only 38 parts, six clear and the rest in gray -- unusual for the Stealth Fighter. The reason for the sprue color comes from the gray camoflage scheme tested near the end of the aircrafts career for possible daylight operations. The parts makeup on this kit is different from other F-117 kits that I have seen. The fuselage is split horizontally but the wings are separate parts. Other kits that I have seen have the wings attached to the fuselage parts. The fit of the separate wings was not that great and I used lots of putty trying to improve it. Also, the undersides of the wings needed putty to hide the joins. Other than that, fit was pretty good. There is no bomb bay in this version, just a single piece to show the bay closed. The fit is ok but I used some scrap sheet to back the part for support. The single-piece canopy can be displayed open or closed and is very thin. So thin that mine got crushed during construction. An email to Dragon got a response the next day. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a replacement in stock but they said they would order one from Japan. It has been a couple months but you never know. Decals are provided for one plane in the gray scheme. While it looks interesting in this scheme, I feel the only color for the Stealth is black. I had wanted to do a "what if" version in RAF 617 Dambusters markings but had given my decals away to someone else. So I stole the decals from a different kit. Too bad the squadron codes disintegrated when I went to put them on the kit. So I combined some of the markings from the Hasegawa kit with those that did survive and still wound up with a "what if" model. The Hasegawa decals worked well over a coat of Future. Testor’s Dullcote was then sprayed on to give it that nice, flat black finish. I attached the landing gear and the other clear parts and it was done. The kit captures the look of the Nighthawk and, other than the wings, was a fairly quick build. Thanks to Dragon Models USA for supplying the kit.