Special Hobby Hawker Tempest Mk.V 1:32 – build review

Feature Article by Ashley Dunn

A note from Geoff…
It’s great to have a second build of this impressive kit from Special Hobby. You may remember seeing Dave C’s lovely ‘High Tec’ build that you’ll find in Aircraft-Finished Now-Special Hobby

There’s also a full in-box review that’s in Aircraft-Here Now-Kits-Special Hobby.

And here’s a sneak peek of Ashley’s excellent completed build…

Over to you Ash…

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Aftermarket parts:
• HGW Seatbelts (13258)
• Eduard Masks (JX193)
• Xtradecal Hawker Tempest V (X32061)

Main Paints used:
(I usually use Mr. Hobby Aqueous Acrylic paints but also Tamiya have a complete set so I thought I’d give some of them a go).

• Tamiya XF-71 Cockpit Green (used for cockpit, interior fuselage & wheel wells etc)
• Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black (Tyres, Instrument panel, interior fuselage parts etc)
• Gunze Aqueous H73 RAF Dark Green
• Tamiya XF-82 Ocean Grey 2 (RAF)
• Tamiya XF-83 Medium Sea Grey 2 (RAF)
• Thinned with Mr. Color Levelling Thinner (Mr. Hobby)

(Detail painting – I tend to use Revell Aqua for this as it’s acrylic (my preference) and relatively thick which I find is ideal for that job.)

Overview

This is the basic kit (i.e. no resin, seatbelts, masks supplied although I did buy the HGW belts & Eduard Masks as per above) and is supplied on 8 medium grey sprues and 1 clear plastic sprue. Sprue gates are generally small and require minimal clean up. Very little flash is present and where this was found only required a few light swipes with a sanding stick. The plastic is somewhere between the current Airfix (soft-ish) and say Hasegawa (Hard) possibly leaning towards the latter but nonetheless easy to work with. I took the major fuselage and wing components off the sprues for a quick dry fit and general impressions were good. Hopefully this will prove true as I get into the build!

The Build…