Hawker Sea Hawk
FB Mk.3 / FGA Mk.50 with AIM-9B

Special Hobby, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Glen Porter

 Special Hobby's 1/72 scale Hawker Sea Hawk is available online from Squadron.com
 

I had already bought the MPM version (72094) of this kit when Brett gave me the Special Hobby 1/72 scale Hawker Sea Hawk FB Mk.3/FGA Mk.50 to review.

MPM’s is a nice kit of the Sea Hawk but lacks detail somewhat.

The new offering from Special Hobby addresses this situation in spades. Talk about going from one extreme to the other! With the same plastic as MPM, including a basic interior [not for use] and the German tall tail [also not for use], there is a host of resin and PE parts including a highly detailed cockpit tub which also has the nose wheel bay under neath. This part should add enough weight to cause the model not to be a tail sitter. If not, there is a cavity in front of it where extra weight could be added.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

For ease of construction or moulding, the fuselage and main plane are moulded together and split horizontally. This means there will be no problem with the small amount of wing dihedral although some care will have to be taken to hide the join on the nose sides. The tail, from just aft of the jet pipes, is split vertically and the join to the front section is on a panel line although a small section near the jet pipes will need to be hidden.

The resin, apart from the cockpit, which includes a detailed ejection seat and sidewalls, is mainly for the under-wing ordinance [Aim-9, drop tanks and 500lb bombs] and the PE, similarly, apart from the cockpit [instrument panel and seat belts] is for the missile, bomb and tank fins. A third resin drop tank is supplied which has damage received from Egyptian AA fire in the Suez crisis in November 1956. Cool! The Aim-9 missiles are only for the Dutch example.

Decals, beautifully printed by Aviprint, are for two aircraft - one Royal Navy and one Dutch Navy [Kon. Marine]. Both are Ground Attack versions with the British aircraft having the black and yellow stripes of the Suez campaign.

The only criticisms I can make of this kit is that there are no colour recommendations for either the cockpit or the wheel wells and the canopy is a one piece item restricting the view of all that lovely cockpit detail. With a bit of care, the canopy could be cut open with a razor saw and a copy of 4+s Hawker Sea Hawk book will provide all the colour details you will want. It would appear that MPM/Special Hobby have used this excellent reference book in the production of this kit as all the aircraft examples are included in it.

Although post-war jets are not my forte, this is one that I’m really looking forward to building, perhaps as a build report for Hyperscale.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to MPM/Special Hobby for the review sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2005 by Glen Porter
Images Copyright © 2005 by Brett Green
Page Created 04 January, 2005
Last updated 03 January, 2005

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