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Special Hobby have sent us details of their new-tool kit of the P-40N Warhawk. The kit is produced with the company's latest steel-mould technology and will be followed by a series of resin upgrade sets.

The P-40 Warhawk/Kittyhawk formed the equipment of the USAAF units and other Allied air forces throughout the whole period of the Second World War. In many various verisons, the type saw service in all the theatres of operations. Because of that, the P40 fighter and fighter-bomber aeroplanes could be seen with markings of many air forces and wearing many colourful finishes.

The P-40N version was the last one to be put into the service and fought mainly with USAAF units in the Pacific and in the CBI (China Burma India) theatre. While with the Commonwealth air forces, it was known as the Kittyhawk Mk.IV. The RAF deployed this version in Italy, the RAAF and RNZAF in the Pacific.

The P-40N kit comes on three grey styrene sprues and one clear sprue with canopy parts, underwing landing light and a gun sight. The canopy parts comprise of the separate windshield, the rear fixed section and two sliding centre sections enabling the modeller to portray his model with either closed or open canopy

One of the sprues which offers the smaller parts have also two styles of the propeller, one with narrow chord blades for the early P-40s, the other with broad blades for later verisons of the plane. This feature makes our P-40 kit the only one in production now to deal with the fact of the two different propellers. Amongst the smaller parts you can find also several other alternative parts such as for example two various exhaust stacks or two styles of the underbelly fuel tanks.

The decal sheet caters for two US and one Dutch aircraft. The first of the American machines was embellished with a name on one side of the cowling and a nose art on the other side. It flew with the famous 49FG. The second machine of the USAAF saw operations in the CBI with the 80FG which was famous for having scary skull paintings on nose sections on many of their planes. The last option is a Dutch East Indies aircraft flying over New Guinea and bearing SNAFU acronym on its nose, flag-type national markings and a letter H on the tail. After the war, the plane kept on flying and our colour instructions depict this plane also as she appeared then in 1947.

SH72374 is due for release soon. Price: 15.00 Euros.

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