Sneak Peak! - early inspection reviews 2

Canopy: a 2-part canopy is included allowing for an open or closed hood. Possibly the clearest, sparkliest canopy I’ve ever seen! I noticed a few tiny blue flecks (spots) in the plastic on both the main raised portion and front screen, although they are so fine they may not even notice on the finished model? The familiar and necessary mould seam line runs down the canopy but this will be easily removed with careful sanding and buffing (See Techniques Bank).

Wings: nice to see that there aren’t thousands of tiny rivets here. The real aircraft has a pretty smooth wing surface and with the inclusion of separate leading edge slats make this area of the kit a real strength. At first glance Revell also seem to have captured the subtle curvature of the wing form, but we’ll need to see how it all looks when assembled. The wing-tip mounted ECM pods look accurate.

Stores and weapons: plenty in the box here: Pairs of German and RAF 1000 Ltr fuel tanks, 2 X AIM-132 ASRAAMs, 2 X AIM 120B AMRAAMs, 2 X AIM 9L Sidewinder AAMs, 2 X Meteors and 2 X IRIS-Ts. A decent compliment of weapons that will allow you to construct operational aircraft from the British and German versions included on the decal sheet.

Instruction book

This is classic Revell – a 20 page 129-step booklet with the usual exploded views. Options and variations seem clear with helpful guidance for less experienced modellers in terms of advice in securing, taping, gluing and securing parts. This kit includes nearly 400 parts and that confirms the value for money you are getting here – there’s no real need for anything else to add to your Typhoon.

Decal sheet

The sheet is crammed full of squadron and stencil data so lots on offer here. Not sure about the quality in terms of their thickness and flat finish – I have had problems with Revell’s sheets that look similar to this one with carrier film showing through and silvering of the finish, but wait to see on this point. Certainly the colour looks accurate and the decals are printed in perfect register. The serial codes for the 11 Squadron machine are printed in dark grey that’s better than black, if maybe still a touch on the dark side?
Two aircraft are featured…

Eurofighter Typhoon of German Air Force Jagdgeschwader 74 “Molders”, Neuberg, 2009 and
Eurofighter Typhoon F.2 of No.11 Squadron Royal Air Force, RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire 2009

Overall

A good package this and seemingly very good value for money. Plenty to back this up when you look at the stores options, separate engine that can be displayed realistically – especially when you consider the open engine bay panels. Some of you may remember Patrick Bouclans superb F-104 Starfighter diorama at this year’s IPMS Scale ModelWorld? Quite excellent scale modelling (and coming to this magazine very soon!) well, you could do something very similar here with a little creativity? There may be one or two fit issues that become evident later in the build, but at this stage this new Revell release is very welcome and I for one am excited to see the finished product. So check out the full In-Progress Review (IPR) by James V – coming very soon…

Recommended.
Geoff Coughlin
(EIR posted within 24 hours of receiving review sample)