Reference number: L4803
Price £34.99 (at 17 Nov 10)
Review by Geoff Coughlin
Our thanks to The Airbrush Company Ltd for supplying our review sample. Get this impressive kit here now at: www.airbrushes.com
Das Fliegende Auge…
Or Flying Eye, as the Fw 189 was popularly known, was conceived in February 1937 in answer to an RLM specification calling for an advanced successor to the Hs 126 short-range reconnaissance aircraft which was then undergoing trials. The Fw 189 was certainly more conventional than the Blohm und Voss design, the Bv 141 employing an asymmetric layout and was one of the strangest-looking aircraft ever built. The Fw 189 employed a twin-boom layout with two small engines and an extensively glazed central fuselage nacelle. The Fw 189 V9 has two movable MG 15 guns replaced by twin 7.9mm MG 81Z installations, providing the aircraft with a defensive armament of no less than six machine guns. The Fw 189 V9 led to the construction of the Fw 189A-2 production model which began to appear on the production lines in the middle of 1941.
Production of the Fw 189 finally ceased at Bremen in February 1943, eleven aircraft being produced by Focke-Wulf in that year. A total of 864 Fw 189 aircraft including prototypes were built.
Initial assessment…
It’s clear that quite a few of SMN’s subscribers also build armour kits and I only mention this because Great Wall Hobby (GWH) who is well known to armour modellers may be new to aircraft enthusiasts. The fact that they have now turned their attention to aircraft in 1:48th scale with this mixed-media kit is very good news for us – especially if you like Luftwaffe WWII scale modelling. The quality and precision / detailing on GWH armour kits is very high and so is this first package -so read on to discover just why this is such a good product.
Sprues and box…
The sturdy box has moody artwork depicting a Fw-189A-2 in flight and what immediately strikes you is the unique shape of the type – twin booms, glass house for a cockpit and rear gunner position, basically different – very different from the usual Bf-109s and Fw-190s (I love them too, but just look at this subject…)
ZOOM - Move your mouse over image
The five grey sprues are moulded very cleanly with no flash anywhere that I could find. What’s more the plastic is very smooth and high quality that should be as easy to work with as Tamiya plastic. I’ll let you know when I build this one – it’s next up straight after the Sea Vixen that’s almost done. Recessed panel lining is about as good as it gets with fine scribing in all the right places as far as I can see. The fuselage has plenty of interior detail moulded into the fuselage sides as well as separate panels and many other small details that should make this are look very busy on the finished model. Slightly annoying are the multitude of small faint circles caused by the moulding process and some of these are going to be difficult to remove. Given the glasshouse nature of the cockpit I suspect that these will have to be removed to avoid them being seen on the completed model, but we’ll wait and see in the build. Furthermore the engine bays are well detailed too as they have internal rigging. The best bits are probably the super-detailed engines as they have etched injectors and finely detailed engine supports plus much more.
ZOOM - Move your mouse over image
