Reviews : Airfix Hawker Typhoon

This kit is pretty standard for new Airfix, which is to say, it's a wonderful build. Very well-detailed for the price point (inside, it looks like a $25 kit), the cockpit is nice, and the wheel wells are perfectly acceptable. The gun bays in the wings can be cut and posed open, as well. A super-detailer would find plenty to do, but for most of us, there's enough detail to go around. The parts mostly fit perfectly; the only minor fit issues I found were with the bottom of the chin radiator, and the internal part where the prop attaches. Everything else was pretty much shake-and-bake, needed very little filler. The kit includes a full load of either 8 rockets or two 500-lb bombs. Unfortunately, there is no open canopy piece. The decals are fantastic, durable enough to move into place without ripping, thin enough that they settle down nicely, and look painted-on with a bit of Micro-Sol. The kit includes two Temperate Day (Ocean Grey and Dark Green over Sea Grey) schemes: one with a black spinner and a very colorful example with a red spinner and D-Day stripes.

This kit went together really well. All the parts really needed was minor cleaning from the sprue gates, and with careful gluing there were no seams to fill. The decals worked great with the setting solution I used (Solvaset). The kit has the options for rockets or bombs which was nice to have, along with the weighted tires. My only gripe is that some of the sprue gates are in pretty bad spots, making taking parts off tough or resulting in some pitting where they were. Not a deal breaker by any means but just an annoyance. This was a great, easy, relaxing weekend build- and would be a great second (or 3rd, etc) model for someone just starting out. Its one of those kits that once you build it once, it provides such a great experience that you want to build another.

First of all, there is a bad mistake on this kit... On the writting part... The reason why the typhoon was not a sucess, and the tempest was, it wasn't only due to the engine and reliability problems, but because typhoon's wings were too thick, which gave it a terrible performance in high altitude, and prevented it to have a good top speed. The tempest was originally a higher mark typhoon with thinner wings, but due to reasons, it was decided to call it a different name. Appart from that, we can have visible guns, the interior is perfect and would deserve a clear fuselage so we could see it... tight perfect fit, no problems whatsoever. A perfect one, once again

Good value. Impressed by nice panel lines. Plan on buying more Airfix 1/72 kits. Rockets have me some grief. Some missing mount holes.