Introduction

Every now and then a "must have" turns up on the radar and this was definitely the case - a 1/144 scale TA 152H! There are two boxings available at the time of writing, Ta 152H-0 (Art. MKM14437) and Ta 152H-1 (Art. MKM14438), I suspect they differ only in the choice of markings since the aircraft themselves were nearly identical!

The plastic

To start with, you get TWO TA-152:s in one box, each consisting of 26 grey parts and one clear canopy. The parts themselves are finely cast - not up to Eduard's standard in this scale but still good. And a fair bit better than the Westland Wessex from the same company that I have in my stash! The larger parts have a slightly rough surface but that will be easily taken care of with a quick swipe with a sanding stick. Trailing edges of wings, elevators and rudder are OK out of the box and can easily be sanded even thinner if you so desire!

Cockpit is extremely small in this scale but comes with one part for floor and side consoles, an instrument panel and a nice seat. Compressor intake is split into two parts that will have to be glued and then drilled to get the intake opening, wheels and landing gear legs look good as well. The only parts that look grossly overscale are the landing gear doors, actually quite unavoidable when done in plastic in this scale. Ideally they should have been supplied as photo-etch but they are easy to sand thinner even if you will loose the cast detail on one side.

Cannon are cast with the one-piece wing and look surprisingly good as they come, I suspect however that most modellers will substitute these and the pitot tube with very thin tubing or piano wire.

Canopies comes packed separately together with the decals and look commendably thin and clear!

Decals

Each kit comes with four different decal options (in both cases three Luftwaffe and one allied post-war variant). They look very much the same (there wasn't much room for personal markings or other flamboyant stuff during this stage of the war) apart from the individual numbers and rear fuselage bands. I suspect many modellers will do the allied option and one of the Luftwaffe ones - especially considering that there inexplicably are only swastikas and crosses supplied for one aircraft! The decal sheet is very small but well printed with legible werke-numbers and decals are also included for the side consoles and instrument panels - a nice touch!

Instructions

This is the kind of kit that most of us probably could build WITHOUT any instructions but there is still a 3-stage clear and concise construction sequence on the double-sided A4-instructions. The rest of the space is taken up by full 3-views of all decal options that are shown in profile only on the back of the box. The plans are to 1/144-scale so can be conveniently used as a pattern for cutting camouflage masks - another nice touch! RLM-numbers and generic names are given for all colours but no colour manufacturer´s numbers are stated. Getting those for your favourite brand of paint are however no big mystery in the age of Internet!

Please remember, when contacting retailers or manufacturers, to mention that you saw their products highlighted here - on Aeroscale.