Vintage Fighter Series | VFS 2401: Curtiss AVG P-40 Warhawk

Reviewed by Tony Oliver

Overview

This first kit from Vintage Fighter Series has been long anticipated by large scale modellers and it has undergone a lengthy production process since its announcement in early 2004. Rumours of it being an upsized Trumpeter copy are largely unfounded although there are similarities both from an instruction sheet and detail component point of view.

The history of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk and its development from the Hawk series of radial engined pursuit fighters is well documented elsewhere and this review concerns the new product only. Links to references are contained for the reader to make their own judgement on accuracy and value for money.

Rather than colour this review with personal opinion or information culled from existing reviews this review is a photo documentary of the kit and its components. A full construction article will appear on LSP soon to assess how the kit builds up.

The Basics

If you’re expecting a highly detailed state of the art 24th scale ‘superkit’, then the VFS P-40, despite the Jim Laurier and Richard Caruana box art, which lures the modeller with the promise of delights within, falls short of this expectation. If that sounds harsh it is said from a viewpoint of today’s ‘modeller product expectation’ based on the standards set by industry leaders. Modellers as consumers expect detailed quality products for their leisure buck. These established manufacturers produce on the whole, quality products from the benefits of long term investment. To set the new P-40 against this standard is perhaps unfair, but looked at from a point of view of modern production technology and techniques, the VFS kit has little or nothing to set it apart it from an Airfix 24th kit of ’70s vintage. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as some of Airfix’s later superkits are still great kits but time and quality waits for no one. To put this into perspective, look at Hasegawa’s Bf 109E, truly bearing but a passing resemblance to the real thing, yet Hasegawa now command respect and recognition.

To look at the P-40 in more detail, the level of surface detail which many will argue as a point of personal taste, is rudimentary and doesn’t include fastener or rivet detail. At this scale there should be a representation of cowling fastener form at least (which arguably shouldn’t be visible in other scales but which is included very effectively in much smaller scales) and the depth and width of panel line engraving is both erratic and over scale, noticeably on the tail area. The larger issue here is that the engraved detail doesn’t seem to conform to any of the published scale plans.

Surface texture too is noticeable and in the images there is a definite roughness or slight ‘orange peel’ effect to what is supposed to be a representation of rolled and formed alloy sheet. There is no definition to fabric surfaces and in this respect the Airfix Hurricane from the late ’70s is a good example of scale restrained fabric over alloy structure. (For image information, the kit was photographed in a studio with a Nikon D70 D-SLR on a Manfrotto tripod and with ARRI studio tungsten lighting with blue 80B filters.)

Raised access panels such as the now infamous radio hatch on the Trumpeter 32nd P-40B have been replicated by the VFS kit and whilst not as pronounced as the 32nd scale kit, it is in this instance an over-simplified shape with hinge detail that would be barely acceptable in 48th scale. There are also strange raised gun access panels and inspection panels at the tail, none of which appear on original aircraft (keep in mind here, that Tamiya saw fit to include BDR plates on its F-4…researchers do make mistakes!)

Of course it has been suggested that the raised detail can be removed and rightly so but then the return to the question of what qualifies as acceptable levels of detail and accuracy which is a recurring issue for this review throughout.

To VFS’s credit they are aware of the kits shortcomings and given the kits lengthy development period it’s apparent that much work was done to correct other areas during pre-production. This is borne out by images from VFS the reviewer had access to during development.

Basic shape and form accuracy in regard to outline seems to be good with the proviso that scale drawings should not be regarded as the holy grail of modelling reference accuracy. With this in mind, the P-40 hasn’t been slavishly offered up to 24th scale drawings (how accurate is your photocopier at these enlargement factors?) but visually checked against period photographs and a collection of four separate drawing sets including original factory schematic drawings.

Areas which are identifiable include the rear upper fuselage shape which should have a more pronounced curve to the base of the vertical tail and the spinner which has an indefinable problem of not being ‘conical’ enough. It has been suggested in other reviews that the wing leading edge taper is wrong, in actual fact the wing planform is excellent in outline and shape however a perennial problem with kits of this size is scale thickness offset against the structural strength of the plastic.

The VFS kit is not alone in having overscale wing thickness problems at the root, again an area identified by VFS and a result of the planned working undercarriage. Perhaps the biggest problem from a point of view of correct-ability is the ventral tunnel which is a hallmark of the type and which on the real thing, has some complex compound curves which fair in the rear of the oil cooler outlet and cooling flaps to the fuselage underside. The VFS kit doesn’t replicate this area well and to correct this is a major undertaking as the one piece lower wing makes up the structural integrity and dihedral of the kits wing.

Detail is also lacking noticeably in the cockpit area with a definite softness to the detail and also the open cooling flaps which are over simplified and have no operating mechanism, something very visible on the real thing…I could provide a litany of other ‘areas for improvement’ but enough with the words, I'll leave you with the images to allow you to form your own impressions about why this kit could have been so much more than it is.

Conclusions

To be positive, the kit is an opportunity for superdetailers to cut plastic and get their teeth into a modelling project which will draw more on skill and craftsmanship than the ability to throw paint and glue at styrene. For the aftermarket companies its an opportunity to look seriously at offering detail sets for the cockpit and undercarriage areas as well as flying surfaces with realistic fabric effect and accurate rib detail. But overall, this first offering is found wanting when matched with its modern peers and it would be folly for this review to say otherwise.

Granted it is a first product and for the introductory price (in the UK) it is a large piece of plastic, but I can’t help wondering that if more effort was put in to ensure consistent detail, avoid basic errors of form, the erroneous engraved detail and poor quality control in the shape of packaging typos then more people who don’t build large scale kits would be inclined to seriously look at purchasing this kit. As it is, die hard Curtiss fans are probably its major sales hope amongst hobbyists.

The next release is mooted to be a P-47 and hopefully the release of this kit doesn’t wholly rest on the financial returns of the P-40.

The opportunity is there for VFS to learn from this kit, take the opportunity to listen to hobbyists and give the large scale modelling world something that can really be counted as a desirable product.

This is definitely a ‘curate’s egg’ and whilst good to fair in parts (a superb engine largely hidden from view and a nice decal sheet) doesn’t leave me inspired to make the effort.

I’ll leave it to the images to form your own impressions.

Review sample compliments of Vintage Fighter Series.

References

Curtiss factory schematic drawings Scale plans P-40 detail and scale Pt 1, Kinsey et-al. - Building the P-40 Warhawk: A Scale Modeller's Handbook Phillips & Hjermstad

Web Images

Steve Hinton’s restored P-40C Chino
Kiwi Aircraft Images Brad Hagen’s
P-40 web site

Comparative Product List

Trumpeter P-40B 1:32 scale nearest modern P-40 kit comparator
Revell P-40 1:32 scale detail comparator
Airfix Hawker Hurricane 1:24 scale fabric surface detail in 1:24 scale