Manufacturer: Hasegawa, distributed by Marco Polo Import, 532 S. Coralridge Pl., City of Industry, CA 91746, 626-333-2328.
Kit: No. 51217
Scale: 1/72
Price: $19.98
Comments: Injection molded, 76 parts, decals.
Pros: Good detail, bomb bay can be posed open, detailed landing gear.
Cons: Warped parts complicate assembly, canopy halves difficult to glue together, decals out of register.
A new state-of-the-art kit of the de Havilland Mosquito has been needed in this scale, and the first to answer the call is Hasegawa. It is neatly molded in light gray plastic with petite, recessed scribing. The main parts are broken down along panel lines to allow other variants to be issued from the basic kit. This ends up to be both a blessing and a curse. I'm looking forward to more Mossies, but this method produced some warpage in my sample.
Basic fit of all components was good, but the left lower wing section was warped. The fuselage is split fore and aft, and warpage resulted in a pinched-in bomb bay area and resultant gaps where the wings attach. Filler was required between the forward and aft fuselage assemblies.
A basic interior is provided as well as a nicely-done bomb bay with separate doors. With all four bombs mounted, the bay is nicely cluttered even though there's no detail on the forward part of the bay and little on the doors. I had to trim down the aft bomb bay bulkhead to improve the fit of the bottom seam of the aft fuselage halves. I added simple masking tape seat belts in the cockpit to enhance the interior.
The engine nacelles are made up of four pieces: left and right lower front halves, plus the upper cowling and aft nacelle, which are extensions of the wing halves. Because my wing was warped, I glued one side of each nacelle in place at a time and let it dry before aligning and gluing the other side.
I like the way the wings are mounted on a twin-spar assembly. Though the landing gear is missing a couple of cross-braces and the wheel wells have little detail, the appearance is satisfactory. The main tires have the checkerboard tread design but the locating pins result in misalignment of the halves. I cut off the pins and aligned the halves by eye.
Markings are provided for two aircraft, a 105 Squadron machine and my choice, the "Grim Reaper" markings of F/O Harry Stephens's 109 Squadron Mosquito. My sample was slightly out of register, with all the red markings showing a sliver of white peeking out of one side.
The canopy is split down the middle, and the plastic is so thin that it's difficult to glue and clean up the seam. The bombardier's nose is thicker, but it shows distortion.
I spent about 25 hours on my Mosquito, with most of the time spent counteracting the warpage and fiddling with the canopy. Next time, I'll substitute vacuum-formed clear parts and maybe add a photoetched interior detail set.
Problems aside, the kit builds up into a handsome model of the sleek Mosquito. The gun-nose Mk.VI has already been issued, and Tamiya is also starting a 1/72 scale swarm of Mosquitoes. I'll review one in a later issue.