Review by: Geoff Coughlin (November 2011)
Our thanks to Revell Germany for supplying our review sample. 
A little bit of Inspiration
The Revell Kit
Revell are certainly on a roll these days with plenty of new-tool kits being released, such as the impressive armour subjects such as their Panther Ausf D in 1:35 scale and Arado Ar-196A-3 in 1:32 to mention just two.
But it’s not just these larger scales that are attracting interest, clearly the very small scale 1:144 is too. So we now have the Eurofighter Typhoon F2 single seater and, if you like small projects, then you should take a good look at the Revell range – it’s growing and impressive.
Box and Contents
The box artwork is usually very good and it’s decent enough here, with a Typhoon climbing at speed to intercept some poor unfortunate intruder! Let’s go inside…
The light blue-grey sprues are packaged well as part of this starter set and no damage is apparent.
Taking the main components first, they are quite well tooled, feeling quite hard and brittle-like. No distortion was apparent and a dry fit of the fuselage promises a decent fit and overall shape looks pretty good. Moving to the wings, they are reasonable and the wheel wells are detailed and a realistic scale depth.
Detail Sprues
The components feature recessed panel lines, which will please most of you. However, they may appear a bit over scale for some; the trick in this scale I think is to not go overboard on the weathering and start accentuating the panel line detail too much as it may look unconvincing.
The cockpit is spartan when compared to references and the seat only really bears a passing resemblance to the original Martin Baker. Undercarriage detail is subtle and delicate, reflecting the original units quite well – especially the nose leg.
You get plenty of stores for your Typhoon like AMRAAM’s and two wing fuel tanks (not the 3 you get in the larger 1:48 scale kit). This kit sits in the pocket-money bracket and so it’s fair to say that the kit is surely aimed at the junior and novice market.
Nothing wrong with that of course – in fact, we’re soon going to be starting a ‘Modelling Newbie section here at SMN, aimed solely at people new to this wonderful hobby – but it’s important to point out the facts here.
Clear Parts
The clear parts look clear enough, with a separate front windscreen and rear hood.
Unless you are prepared to do a lot of work on the interior, you may be better closing the canopy and just creating a decent overall impression of a Typhoon cockpit through careful painting of the kit parts and adding some scratched seat belts and a harness.
Instructions
The Revell instructions follow their usual exploded stages format. Location of parts is clear but colour paint coding is for Revell paints only.
However, the colour names are provided, which will help you to match your own choice of paints. This is a basic model and so should present little difficulty in working out where all the parts are located, even for inexperienced modellers.
Decals
The decals seem good. Certainly colour saturation and register is good and all markings are accurate and sharp in their detail. This is probably the best part of the package; good quality decals will make a world of difference to your completed model.
RAF No.11 Squadron as well as Luftwaffe JG.74 “Molders” units feature and plenty of stencil data, although it’s questionable what you would really see of this in this scale. Nice markings though and a decent choice.
Conclusion
Basically, if you are into small-scale modelling then this kit is definitely worth a look, especially as given the low price you could build a whole squadron of them! If you’re prepared to spend a lot of time you can get great results – check out our Subscriber Gallery and some of the work in there!
Recommended for all inexperienced and small-scale modellers.
FEATURE STAR RATING (out of five)
Quality of moulding ***
Accuracy ***
Instructions ***
Decals ****
Subject choice ****
Overall ***
Geoff C.