Hi Guys

Has anyone built The 1/48th Italeri P40m/n I'd be interested in comments/reviews.

I've just finished reading AIR-TO-AIR (the story behind air to air combat claims of the RNZAF)

and a damn good read it is too

The LHS caries the above mentioned kit in RNZAF markings and I'd like to build it if its worth the money $40.00NZD.approx



Chris (A proud NZer)

Hi Chris,

I don't know about the Italeri kit, as i've never seen the parts or built one. I have the Hasegawa P40N and it looks quite good, but of course it costs a bit more than Italeri, and none of them come with RNZAF markings as far as i know .

There a some aftermarket decal sets you could use though, Eagle Stike set 48234 has markings for NZ3254 "Gloria Lyons" which was an early P40N, closer to a P40M actually. Look around and i'm sure there are quite a few decal sets with NZ markings options.

Andrew

Hi Chris,

I have 2 of the Italeri P40m/n kits waiting to be built and I also have the Hasegawa RNZAF boxing too.

If it was me, spending $40 on a P-40 Kit, I would go with the Hasegawa boxing. The Italeri is a rebox on the old AMT/ERTL kits. It needs abit of work here and there and some PE and resins bits are needed to be added, but Hasegawa has nailed it pretty much on the head!

The decals for the roundals in both boxing seems to be wrong to me, Italeri has them in a light blue and Hasegawa has them in a dark/midnight blue.

I have the Aeromaster sheet of the RNZAF in WW2 in 48th and their roundals looks good to me.

Drop me a line at [email protected], I have a spare set of the Wairarapa Wildcat decals that I could send you.....

Cheers

Dave (also a proud Kiwi!)

Hi Chris,
I have the the kit in the middle of being built at eh moment, for $40 I don't think you can go wrong, its a pretty easy build (but I am a treadhead rather than a plane builder lol). But as Dave mentions the roundels are wrong, they should be a dark/midnight blue rather than the sky blue that Italeri have.

Here’s some info on the two kit options –

The Italeri kit is missing few of the small detailed parts like the gunsight, whip antennas, Navigation Lights, mirror, fresh air intakes and the canopy rails are missing too!

You can build most of this with scrap parts or a Eduard PE set.

I think the cockpit is basic and you can use the parts supplied with the Eduard PE set or True Details do a great cockpit for a about $20ish, I know that modelcrafts in Wellington have it instock most of the time.

The wheels in this kit are incorrect for a P-40N that the Kiwi’s used, they are too large. N models used a small diameter wheel. True Details and Ultracast do some nice resin wheels.

There’s abit of distortion on the rear of fuselage on both sides that need to be sanded and re-scribed.


Hasegawa at the top and Italeri is the lower one.


I will come to the roundels at the end…..

The Hasegawa kit (Kittyhawk Mk.III #09715) with the “Wairarapa Wildcat” decals is a Limited Run kit.

It’s the same most of the Hasegawa P-40 series kits. The cockpit detail is outstanding and the only required part is a PE/Tape Seat harness. I can’t fault the Hasegawa kit its worth the money if you not to keen on PE and resin! But the roundel colours are to dark for me, come back to that in a minute!

There are a couple of more kit options for a 1/48 Kiwi P-40. Both are from Eduard, which I now believe to be canceled??? Kit 8086 contains decals for “Wairarapa Wildcat” and Kit 8036 contains “Gloria Lyons”. They both contain resin parts and PE, I seen them on Trade Me once-in-a-while and they have been pretty dear.

Now on the roundels….

Everyone has a different take on this, The Italeri kit is way to light… and I think that the Hasegawa kit is to dark.. Aeromaster decal sheet SP48-10 “The Royal New Zealand Air Force in WW II” in 48th which is now out of production, Their roundels to me seem to be correct colour, somewhere between both kits. But that my 2 cents….

Left is Hasegawa, Middle is Aeromasters SP48-10 and Right is Italeri