Brengun 1/72nd Hawker Typhoon Ib Late Production

[Martin R]

I thought I'd share with you some pics of my Christmas pressie. Yep, I know that Mr Airfix is preparing his own version for the shops, but imho you can never have enough of Hawker's bruiser. So, what do you get?

Some rather nice box art on the unfortunately end-opening box. However, this does appear slightly more substantial than those of some of Brengun's competitors:



The painting guide is printed on the back of the box. There are 4 late / just-post WWII examples in RAF colours (well, what else would they be wearing?) Wg Cdr Button's "Zipp XI" is a nice choice, although I would have hoped for one in full Invasion stripes, too. Check your references, though! As an example, there is no indication of the yellow leading edge ID stripes favoured for RAF fighters, which I would have expected to see.



Decals for those options appear well printed, but there is no stencilling. It should also be noted that for the 3 1945 options, the red / blue Type B upperwing roundels and Type C underwing roundels are, I think, incorrect. These should be Type C1 red / white / blue / yellow as per the fuselage sides.



Contents come in a large zip-lok bag (good idea) with decals / clear parts separately bagged. One page of
the instruction sheet is as shown here. Looks clear enough:



Sprue shots:





Parts are moulded in a light brown plastic. Surface detail looks good, with no flash to talk of. I have done a quick comparison between the kit parts and the plans in the Typhoon Warpaint book. The fuselage looks pretty much spot on, while the wingspan is about 3 mil short. Wing cannon look to be about 1mm too far inboard. In general, I'd say accuracy is pretty good - it's at least sufficient for this builder.

Clear parts:



As it's short run, there are no pins to aid alignment. Also, there are some ejector towers on the interior of parts that will need removing:



Options?

Early (small) or late (large) tailplanes - they look good. However, note that if you wish to fit the large ones, you have to cut off the tail and fit the alternative piece with larger tailplane mounting points. I guess that due to this there are no strengthening fish plates fitted to the rear fuselage joint. These would be relatively simple (if a bit irritating) to add using eg wine bottle foil

3 or 4 bladed prop

8 60lb rockets or 2 bomb racks (but note: no bombs)

Nicely detailed IM cockpit (with PE straps) and main wheel wells.

Shrouded or unshrouded exhausts

Car door (not used on the options given) and bubble canopy

I'm looking forward to seeing how it builds.

regards,

Martin

[PaulBradley]

thanks, Martin.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this compares to the new Airfix kit. I see there's the car door hood on the clear sprue, so obviously they'll be releasing one of those at some point - I doubt Airfix will have that option.

I just picked up the Warpaint at a second hand bookstore - should be very useful, I think.

[AndrewR]

thanks, Martin.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this compares to the new Airfix kit. I see there's the car door hood on the clear sprue, so obviously they'll be releasing one of those at some point - I doubt Airfix will have that option.

I just picked up the Warpaint at a second hand bookstore - should be very useful, I think.

I wonder if Airfix will do a series one kit with one set of decals and then a series two with alternate canopies, props and tailplanes? As they've done this for the Spitfire I and P-51D, cross fingers!

That's a nice Christmas present, Martin

Cheers

Andrew

[Martin R]

thanks, Martin.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this compares to the new Airfix kit. I see there's the car door hood on the clear sprue, so obviously they'll be releasing one of those at some point - I doubt Airfix will have that option.

I just picked up the Warpaint at a second hand bookstore - should be very useful, I think.

I wonder if Airfix will do a series one kit with one set of decals and then a series two with alternate canopies, props and tailplanes? As they've done this for the Spitfire I and P-51D, cross fingers!

That's a nice Christmas present, Martin

Cheers

Andrew

@ Paul,

You're welcome, sir!

@ Andrew,

Well, I'm not going to buy myself something I don't want, am I?

And that was the only kit I got for Christmas. Well, apart from the Secret Santa SH Tempest II!

And the 2 Aldi-sourced Starter Kits of the Tomahawk and Spit Ia . . .

And the Hase Ju88G-6 I bought off a nice chap on Britmodeller . . .

But apart from those, it's the only kit I got for Christmas.

regards,

Martin

[hampden64]

Hi Martin,
Thanks for the review.Looking forward to how this will build up.I have never heard of Brengun.Do they have other kits?

John

[MerlinJones]

I'm curious as to why Brengun would choose such a subject as their kit. They do a marvellous range of accessories in resin and PE, especially their 1/144 stuff. Besides their new Typhoon kits, I've heard good things about their Natter and Wasserfall.

Regards,
Bruce

[Jagewa]

Didn't realise they were doing a Typhoon, really looking forward to your build Martin. hint hint nudge nudge...

[Martin R]

@ hampden64

You're welcome.

I don't really know anything further about Brengun, although there is another boxing of the Typhoon coming out. Merlin's post mentions some more kits and accessories though.

@ Merlin

Dunno. Maybe they spotted a gap in the market. After all, there are hardly many up to the minute toolings of the Tiffie out there in 1/72nd. I think Airfix may have spoilt things for them, though . . .

@ Jagewa

You don't think I've got time to actually build any of my acquisitions, do you?

regards,

Martin

[bassman]

Here is the link: http://www.brengun.cz;

Henk