Focke Wulf 190A 1/48 Eduard kit 8173
I was a little bit surprised when at the postage I have received one large box. Scale 1/48 is large scale but kit inside is Focke Wulf 190 and in this scale it can not be so large. Top box was very tight and I was open it with some force and inside- cave of Ali Baba and his 40 bandits!!! Not jewelry, diamonds or gold but the treasure and state of art of the kit manufacture. My work desk is not much large so I move and set on the couch and get everything from the box out. There was seven frets with the frets brown injected molded styrene, one fret with clear parts, one sheet with the protective masks, one set of the photo etched parts, two set of decals and instructions.
Still under impression I have open all of the parts and get them on the “light”. First what was catch my attention is that kit can be total open, engine is very detailed molded with a lot of basic parts, inside of cockpit is also a great number of parts, separately given cannon in the wing roots, open panels with very nice done interior structure. Clear parts include gun sight and few types of canopy. Canopy can be placed in open or closed position but- when the cockpit hood is open it is pressed in the front part and it is not the same geometry as in the closed position!! For a many of years many manufacturers did not pay attention to this fact and this is big bravo for this kit.
Printed material is also better then ever. Two decal sheets are provided separately for the basic aircraft stenciling and separately for the final kit markings. Separate sheet is provided where is presented position of the all stencils on the plane and on the other side is the instruction how to apply protective masks. Main instruction is not instruction as we all found in the kit box but more can be described as the mini magazine with 16 pages in full color!!! First page is history article with the data about the development of the type with the technical data and nice decorated with the color art.
Following pages are focused on the parts and the assembly of the kit. Very precise and detailed made material. Final four pages is reserved for the colors and marking of the kit. As well there are four different planes to be finally made in this way each sample had its own page, with all researchers available data for the particular plane and four view color profile.
Is this the kit for the beginner? Maybe not but if take more care this could be made into the nice kit even by the less experienced modeler. Must say that “Eduard” is going more and they every month release new version of the basic kit with complete new decal set. This give extra saving to the modeler as well there is no need to hunt for the aftermarket product as well soon or later this is or will be available by the same manufacturer. So note that kit you have seen on the images are out of stock now but many others are available. With this kit released in the late 2006 “Eduard” set new frontier in the world of model making and hope that it will stay leading edge of the top kit releases.
Srecko Bradic
Sample kit were provided by Jana Sulcova, from Eduard
