|
Royal Navy Wildcat VI and
Flight Deck Set
Sweet 1/144
S
u m m a r y
|
| Catalogue Number: |
Sweet Aviation Model Division 1/144
Scale Kit No. 11; Royal Navy Wildcat VI and Flight Deck Set |
| Scale: |
1/144 |
| Contents and Media: |
44 parts (28 in duck egg blue
styrene, 15 parts in grey styrene, 1 in clear styrene) |
| Price: |
£9.99 Sterling |
| Review Type: |
FirstLook |
| Advantages: |
er, nothing else on earth like it;
Wildcat VI looks to be pretty accurate |
| Disadvantages: |
um, not for dog fanciers! |
| Recommendation: |
Highly Recommended (as a change of
pace!) to all Wildcat fans and anyone with a sense of humor |
Reviewed by Cookie Sewell
HyperScale is proudly supported by Squadron.com
There are times some item of whimsey comes along and just strikes the
fancy. About 28 years ago the first "egg" planes came out – small kits
of famous aircraft that were ovate in shape and used a "Leggs" size
plastic egg for a fuselage. I still have a DC-10 in the bright United
colors of the era kicking around someplace, as they were cute and
attractive divertimentoes from normal modeling. (One of my friends once
said it was the type of modeling his dad would have called "Go to Hell"
modeling. If you don't like it, well then you can go to Hell!)
Other oddities pop up from time to time, such as distorted small figures
of famous actors and monsters. But this one was something I recently
found on the shelf at Hannants and was compelled to pick up just for
fun.
The model (the company or individual responsible seems to be
FujitaYukinisa from Shizuoka, Japan, and the kit was produced in 2003)
is a new kit of an FM-2 (Wildcat VI) fighter in 1/144 scale and is an
amazing kit in its own right, but while it consists of new molds appears
(from the comments in D&S No. 30) to have nothing in common with the
Revell 1/144 scale F4F-4 kit. It comes with the correct 9-cylinder
engine for this model with tall tail, short cowling and beautifully done
scribing. Even the canopy appears to be in scale, something rare for
this size of model. The undercarriage consists of 7 parts and is also
neatly done.
Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:
The kit also includes a set of decals for four RN Wildcat VI fighters
in two basic schemes – gray and green over duck egg blue and solid blue.
A section of decking 10 cm x 11 cm (which has a feature to join it to
other sections to provide for a larger area) is also nicely done with
tie-down points represented, and two chocks are included.
 But
there the kit makes a bit of a diversion. It also includes a complete
deck crew and pilot made up of...Japanime cats! The box art (from an
artist named Yuki) looks more appropriate to "Pokemon" than a WWII
fighter, but the idea is whimsy if there ever was one. The "crew"
includes a pilot, two LSOs, one launch officer, two plane handlers, one
announcer (!) and one idler sleeping on the cowling. To make it easy to
paint them, each of the cats comes with decal eyes to make detailing
them easy. The "announcer" also comes with a dickey and "Union Jack" bow
tie.
The same company also makes several Japanese aircraft, of which a Zero
and a Kate (I think) were also available at Hannants. All of them also
come with cats.
I'm not quite sure what the point of all this is, but the idea is
different and the model itself is very good. It is a change of pace.
Highly Recommended. |
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