full article in Scale Aviation Modeller, May 1995
The kit comes in the Series 1 range and costs around £8.25 The box artwork is very striking, showing the pre-production aircraft in the colours depicted on the decal sheet. As with all the kits in this range, painting instructions are on the reverse of the box. Care must be taken here as Italeri has got the red demarcation lines on the wing in the wrong position and their FS code for the US Navy red is also wrong.
The parts come on two sprues and are cleanly moulded in white plastic. There are 49 parts plus three clear parts for the cockpit glazing. The decal sheet is useless for a production version as it carries the wrong size US markings and wrongly coloured NAVY lettering and aircraft code markings.
The Scalecast rear fuselage set consists of new resin halvesincluding the fin and strake with separate airbrakes.
The wings come in six parts with lowered slats and flaps. (The front slats are not correct for production standard aircraft - something I discovered just as I was completing the model!)
COCKPIT DETAILING AND FUSELAGE SURGERY
The cockpit was painted Xtracolor interior grey with details picked out in black and dark grey. Instrument panels were made from the Airwaves detail set and Modeldecal Hawk instrument panel decals. These were all assembled and fixed into one half of the fuselage.
The fuselage halves were taped together and then razor sawn in half to the position as shown on the Scalecast instructions to remove the rear kit fuselage.
The kit parts were cleaned up and then glued together and set aside to dry.
PREPARING THE RESIN While I was waiting for the kit parts to set I cleaned up the resin parts and the wings ready for fixing in position with superglue. (I always put on a dust mask and surgical gloves when using resin.)
After leaving these to dry out overnight the joint lines were filled and then sanded when dry. This was quite a task as the resin to plastic joint was raised on one side and the wings left 1.5 mm gaps which had to be filled with plastic strips and then filled.
The sanding took most of the engraved kit detail off so I then removed any other engraving as on the real aircraft there is not much panelling visible. After all the sanding had been carried out the remainder of the kit parts were added and detailed as required.
The Scalecast dropped flaps and slats were also fitted and the actuators altered to fit. The kit was again cleaned up and washed in warm water with a dash of washing up liquid.
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