I thought it would be a place of difference in this blog we do here at osprey to show kits you may consider buying built with a step-by-step blog of the troubles and triumphs I encounter along the way. We have made a start on this with the Zundapp motorbike and the MiniArt Riverbank sections, I thought I would kit a few aircraft next. We want to bring you the skinny on kits you may be thinking about purchasing but not sure? Let us do the hard yards and find the humps and bumps for you. Along with looking at the kit unassembled I will review it built as well to give you a better idea of what your money is getting. Rules are I build from the box and only add what I can add from scratch materials. So strap yourself in while I bring you the 1/32 Pacific Coast models Focke Wulf Fw 190a 0/1/2/3 kit.
Kit no: PCM 32011
Subject: Focke Wulf Fw 19A0/1/2/3
Scale: 1/32nd
Kit Type: Sprues: 4 grey + 1 clear Styrene + Grey Resin parts + Photo Etch multimedia kit
Decal choices: 8!!! 5 aircraft spanning the A1 + A-2 and A3
Where I got mine: Modelwholesale.co.uk for £59.69
This kit is an interesting proposition, for it is unique in that these early stub nosed FW 190’s have not been kitted in this scale before. The Hasegawa kit that this one mirrors has not been changed to incorporate these earlier A1, A2& and A3 marks, although it would be a very easy to achieve. Simply why this hasn’t been done is anyone’s guess but Hasegawa seem never to be rushed! The other option for an early ‘190 is the Montex kit which is a resin in-fill to be used on the Hasegawa Fw 190A5 kit (which is now out of production). Montex asks for you to cut down the fuselage to add the shorter nose of the earlier engine. Although it is a good kit (complete with masks) I liked the look of this PCM kit – which enables you to do the tree earliest butcher birds without any major surgery. Also a plus is that the kit has several resin enhancements that add value, together with some imported additions which I will mention later.
The version I will be making
I am not going to go into the history of this aircraft – you can look up Wikipedia for that, I want to get into this so let me begin with the kit as it arrives. You get a medium sized blue box that opens up to reveal a plastic re-sealable bag with four sprues of glossy medium grey styrene, containing seventy six parts, five clear parts including the canopy, seventeen light grey resin parts including the engine, cockpit and wheel wells. You also get a coloured Photo Etch set from Eduard and decals for eight different aircraft printed by industry leaders Cartograf. This kit does indeed look like a good proposition!!
The resin here is the first thing I will look at in this kit – supplied as a highly detailed casted parts in a light grey they all look to be superior just say – to the Hasegawa kit of the later butcher bird kits. Of note are the lovely cockpit and the nice little parts like the REVI gunsight and the hollowed out exhausts.
The engine is an all resin affair and looks great – but unfortunately they won’t be seen here as the cowling is buttoned up and the large prop and fan at the front of the end of the cowling block out all but a cursory view of the good work presented here. The undercarriage major and minor are again represented in resin, and look great ( they come up a treat with some paint) and the earlier style of A1 machine guns are included in resin as well. Along with some early and late wheels which are great – although not weighted which would have sealed the deal the resin in this kit is definitely worth it!
The grey plastic finish of the kit is reminiscent of the Hasegawa Fw 190 kit which isn’t a bad thing, and has fasteners and all of the major rivets in all of the right places. Though the detail hounds MAY be upset to find out that it isn’t totally riveted. There are some injection marks in the horizontal stabilizer which are disappointing but pretty easily cleaned up. While we are on the tails they are rigid and must be cut if you want them to be positionable. The fabric elevator surfaces are not too overdone which is a good change from other makers who make them very pitted. These are just right.
The wings are excellent in their texture – the injection makes are on the inside of the wings and there are no sink marks on the outside of the wing which in light of the tail I was happily surprised. The Ailerons are positionable while the flaps are of the static type on this kit.
The fuselage is correct as to the plans I have in my possession, and is finely detailed with only one very slight sink mark in the starboard vertical stabilizer and an injection mark in the front starboard cowling. These however are not repeated on the port side. The quirks of injection moulding eh?! This is the end of the inspection of the kit until later when we look at the canopy and the decals.
As I am making probably the most popular and numerous version of this aircraft of the three - the A3 I won’t go too much into the other variant possibilities of this kit. I will say that only minor changes are needed to make the earlier marks and with some attention to your references you can make an accurate A0, A1 & A3 version, you could even with a slight change to the tail antenna make this into an A4 fighter! So I can say in theory this kit is ticking all of the right boxes!!
there are not any numbers on the sprues but they are included on the instruction sheet so not as much guessing as I had first thought. The Steps start at the cockpit and for this “Play it safe” build I’ll be starting at step 1 – the cockpit, along with the canopy and the Photo etch parts..
But that is next week!!!
Till then have fun with your modelling!
Adam Norenberg