Hasegawa

1/72 F/A-18D Hornet 'Marine Corps Combo'

Kit Number: 0982

Reviewed by  Dave Koukol, IPMS# 46287

MSRP: $49.99 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Background Since the 1980's, the F/A-18 Hornet has been the mainstay of US Naval attack aviation units. As with other previous US Navy attack aircraft, the Hornet has been leveraged into close air support (CAS) and forward air control (FAC) roles with the United States Marine Corps. The two-seat F/A-18D lends itself ideally to both roles, especially to the FAC role, with the backseater observing and coordinating strike CAS activities, leaving the frontseater to do the driving. The Kit Hasegawa presents a re-release of their late -90's F/A-18D, which is based on earlier F/A-18B kits. This time it's "double the fun" - two identical sets of parts - with three markings options.

Each kit is crisply molded in light gray plastic, with a separate well-molded sprue of crystal-clear parts. Panel lines are recessed and delicate, and appear to be consistent with reference photos, drawings, and other F/A-18 kits. External stores, as with other Hasegawa offerings, are limited and include only LANTIRN pods, 2-each AIM-9 and AIM-7 missiles, and 3 external fuel tanks. 4 underwing pylons are also included in the event the modeler wants to add ordnance from their scrap box or wants to fork out the extra coin to buy one of Hasegawa's aftermarket weapons sets. Some parts are clearly repurposed from older F/A-18A and -B variants, but they play nicely with those created for the -C/D variants. The Build Construction of the -D "bug" was pretty straight-forward with little weeping, wailing, or gnashing of teeth. A rather simple kit, with stabilators molded into the upper fuselage and flaps molded into the wings, assembly progressed very quickly. Little effort was required for the cockpit. Consoles and instrument panels are represented with decals that work well in 1/72 scale, but they do lack color on the LCD screens. Ejection seats, as with other Hasegawa kits, are sparse and very basic, with the designers assuming the aircrew figures will be used. Their centerline seams require some cunning and care during assembly to set-up for easy clean-up later. No harness or strap detail is provided. The competitive modeler will likely want to invest in some aftermarket seats or take the time and effort to add detail. Fuselage subassembly required careful dryfitting around the intakes and between the wing trailing edges and stabilators. Forward fuselage required significant filling to generate a smooth seam line, resulting in some rescribing of some smaller panel lines. Wings assembled nicely with little fit or fill, and mated well with the fuselage. Vertical stabs dryfit well and were left off until after painting a decal application were complete. Finishing Markings for VMFA(AW)-242 "Bats" were chosen for Bug #1. Following a good scrubdown with Westley's Bleech White, Tamiya acrylic black was applied as preshade over panel lines, and Polly Scale light and dark ghost gray were airbrushed in the standard Hornet color scheme of the period. Gloss black was applied to the vertical stabs. Future was used over the gray scheme to provide a base for decals and sludge wash. Alclad steel was used on the afterburner cans and row of panels immediately forward of them. Decals went down over the Future without incident and responded well to the Microscale system to ensure tight conformance to the fine detail. After decals were sealed with another touch of future an acrylic sludge wash was applied, followed by a couple light coats of Model Master Acryl Flat. Burnt umber colored pencil was used to recreate a handful of panel lines lacking depth to hold the sludge wash. After tacking on the landing gear, doors, vertical stabs, and other bits and pieces, the bug #1 was done. Bug #2 remains a work in progress…one of the joys of a dual combo kit! Conclusion/Recommendation Despite some filling, sanding, and restoration of panel lines, these little Hasegawa Hornets build up into solid representations of their prototypes. Recommend this kit for modelers with a few kits already under their belts, as well as for experienced modelers. Thanks to Dragon USA for providing the samples for review!