Background

The twin engined Focke Wulf Fw 187 was a contemporary of the Messerschmitt Bf 110, however production was limited to a handful of prototypes. It was developed by Professor Kurt Tank and its first flight was on summer 1937. It was faster than any other German fighters with similar engines at that time. The debacle of the Messerschmitt 210, which was supposed to succeed the Bf 110 gave the Fw 187 a chance. It had a speed of 700 Km/h. But no production contract was forthcoming. The few Fw 187s that had been built served in industry defence and were also operated by the Vaerlose Aerial Gunnery School.

The kit

The kit comes in a top-opening box. It´s an all-resin kit with some metal parts for landing gear. The resin pieces are located in 9 separate bags, typical in resin kits. The kit consists of:

61 x beige resin parts
13 x metal parts
2 x vacuformed canopies (1 spare)
Decals for a single colour scheme (For the Luftschiesschule, Vaerlose Summer 1942)

The resin parts have a very good finish surface, something usual in HML kits (at least in the ones I‘ve seen). All the panels are recessed with a good detail. All the propeller blades, rear wheel and other pieces are cast in a thin resin wafer, and this makes it a little more troublesome to separate them. The other pieces come in the typical resin sprues. I didn´t notice any bubbles in the different resin parts. The surfaces are very clean, but perhaps it´s a good idea to do a pass with 2000-grit sand paper. The instructions consist of exploded diagrams on two sheets of paper and seem very clear.

Test fit & construction

From the instructions sheet it seems very easy to construct this kit. The fuselage comes in two parts, like styrene kits, the wing in 3 parts, left, center and right. The instructions tell you which colors you have to use, including the cockpit. Note: it gives the correct colours with RLM codes. I haven´t made the kit yet but the parts seem to fit together very well.

The cockpit has a very good detail with 18 parts for it, including the radio boxes.
The canopy is an excellent vacuformed moulding and it is very clear.

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