Wheeler's Warhawk

Having already provided themodeller with a new tooled kit of anearly P-40 in 1/72 a few years back, Airfix have put their research data to good use and released the same version but in the larger 1/48 format.

- Rick Greenwood

The kit is not simply a scaled up rendering of the smaller sibling however, as we will see in this out of the box build.

Before any construction commenced the drop in panels that are required for this kit were added to each nose section and the fuselage hatch was added in the closed position. Tamiya extra thin was used, applied from behind to secure each part in place with no remedial work needed.

Any cockpit is usually the focal point of a scale model and invites the viewer to peer into the orifice to inspect the internals should the canopy be posed open. In this scale lack of detail would be much more evident and modellers often have to resort to the use of aftermarket accessories for their quest for extra detail. The first stages of the instruction booklet deal with the cockpit and a number of separate parts are required to complete this stage. After studying the diagrams the cockpit parts were all removed from the sprues and had their mould lines removed, as well as a small amount of flash. The parts seemed a little clumsy in their design and production with a little more work needed to bring them up to par, especially the cockpit sidewall framework. The parts were then prepared for painting and had a light coat of Alclad grey primer sprayed over them before their respective top coats.

The cockpit floor was first sprayed silver and the areas indicated by Airfix were masked to remain metallic. The rest of the interior green parts were then painted using Mr Hobby H58. The internal fuel tank was painted Tamiya XF-64 red brown, when dry the retaining straps were picked out in aluminium before a dark wash was added to add depth. The control stick was then glued in place on the painted cockpit floor and the rear bulkhead attached using Tamiya extra thin cement.