Eduard

1/48 Airacobra Mk. I S.A Zoom Set For the Hasegawa Kit

Stock Number: FE 435

Reviewed By  Pablo Bauleo, IPMS# 46363

MSRP: $14.95 Website: www.eduard.cz, Direct Link to item. The Airacobra/P-39/P-400 series of airplanes, due to their car door access deserves a detailed cockpit. The Hasegawa kit provides a very nice cockpit out of the box, but Eduard provides an even nicer detail with this fret. The Zoom PE detail fret is intended to be simpler and require less bending/folding/painting than their full-blown counterpart. I like that. But, this fret is of the "self-adhesive" kind and, honestly, I didn't like that. The glue was missing in half of the fret (maybe it was intended that way), and having to remove the part while keeping the wax paper attached to the back, it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be. I also came across to a minor issue with the seatbelts. According to the instructions you are supposed to get the two-part seatbelt together and then fold the buckles from the back part onto the front one. However the seatbelts were molded together with the back part seatbelt, as a single piece. I just left out the top part of the seatbelt, to keep the buckles visible. Now, on the bright side, the instrument panel is delightful, very simple to assemble and very realistic on its looks. The machine gun handles, very prominent in this aircraft, are very nicely rendered, as well as all the instrument dials and bezels. The fret also includes side console and cockpit door details. I like the placards for the doors. You cannot read them, but you can see them very clearly and adds to the whole cockpit "feeling" of the kit. I had a mixed experience with this fret, but overall it was a positive one. The fret is simple to work with (mostly flat parts and just a few bends) and it provides a lot of detail. The only downside is the self-adhesive. In my humble opinion, it makes the assembly more difficult, instead of simpler. I would highly recommend it for any modeler that has a few PE under their belt, and even to the modeler that is itching to break into photo-etch details. As I said, the Zoom frets are amongst the simplest ones to work with. I would like to thanks Eduard for providing the review sample and IPMS for allowing me to review it. There will be an update to the review, when I complete the kit.