Revell Hawker Tempest Mk.V 1:32 – build review

Full Review with Adam Waistell-Brown

Kit Ref: 03851

Introduction

The Hawker Tempest was a British fighter aircraft primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the Typhoon II, was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to address the Typhoon’s unexpected deterioration in performance at high altitude by replacing its wing with a thinner laminar flow design. Since it had diverged considerably from the Typhoon, it was renamed Tempest. The Tempest emerged as one of the most powerful fighters of World War II and was the fastest single-engine propeller-driven aircraft of the war at low altitude.(Source: Wikipedia)

The Revell Kit…

This is a re-boxing of the Special Hobby kit. This is my first build of either a Tempest or a Special Hobby model so I’m not entirely sure what to expect! I’ve heard mixed reviews so I approached the first few steps very tentatively.

Cockpit…

Always nearly the first point of entry into any kit is the cockpit, so I started by removing all the major cockpit components and assembling the parts ready for painting.

I used Tamiya XF-71 for the interior of the cockpit, with an oil wash using Abteilung shadow brown thinned with white spirit. This was added around the detail on the sidewalls and floor.

Detailed painting was carried out on the various parts around the busy cockpit and I then sprayed Tamiya Clear on the areas where the decals were to be applied.

The frame of the cockpit assembly is pretty nice to assemble, as it looks fairly scary to be fair! But all the parts fitted with ease and the final assembly is very sturdy and slots inside the two fuselage halves perfectly.

Read on…