[Serpiko]

box picture found in the web


PROS

- Nicely detailed
- Good fitting
- Excellent decals


CONS

- Complete markings for 1 plane only
- No external bomb racks
- In my kit, some pieces were slightly deformed



THE PLANE

Ah, the "Wooden Wonder"... the mk VI fighter-bomber version was the most heavily produced variant of this versatile machine, packing an impressive combination of speed (611 km/h), range (2'750 km) and armament (4x .303 MGs, 4x 20mm cannons, up to 4x 500lb bombs). It served in almost every theatre of operations.




THE KIT

I wasn't looking for a Mosquito kit that day, but it is rare to find one in the shops near home. This one looked nice, and didn't cost too much for a large twin-engined Hasegawa bird. So it ended into my "to do" pile and, since my lovely wife liked it, straight to the top!
The content of the box looks good: rather than a few large sprues, there are several smaller ones, all sealed in a plastic bag. Another bag protects the decals sheet and the transparent parts: these are cristal clear and include a beautiful canopy, wing lights and the reflex sight. All main components are finely molded in grey plastic with recessed panel lines and a high detail level, including the interior of gear and bomb bays.
This kit obviously shares some sprues with other Mosquito versions, since there are a few unused bits, while nose and the cockpit are to be built separately and then attached onto the fuselage. You also get two different prop sets. Besides the detailed landing gear, the loadout options are a pair of 500lb bombs, but you only need them if you want to build the bomb bay open, since there are no pylons for the wings: instead, there are eight 60lb rockets with their rails.
Decals appear to be finely printed and perfectly registered. There's plenty of stenciling, but there are markings for only one plane, NS850 TH-M "Black Rufe" from 418th squadron, flown by Squadron Leader R.A. Kipp in June 1944 (this machines also features a nice noseart). The only alternative is an unmarked and un-referred plane with serial number HX918.




BUILDING

Similarities both in plane structure and kit engineering make the building process of this model not so different from that of Revell's Lancaster (of course, the job here is easier). Also, once again, you can work more easily if you build fuselage and wings separately; wings can then be fixed onto the "spars" protruding from the fuselage.

COCKPIT AND FUSELAGE - The first thing to build is the "core" of the model, a block including the bomb bay, wing support and the rear part of the cockpit (and the two bombs, if needed). Once this structure is finished, it can be enclosed between the two fuselage halves, and so the tail wheel.
The front part of the cockpit (from pilot seat onwards), instead, must be built separately, then you can join the two halves of the nose around it. You also need to add the plate featuring the cannon muzzles and fix the nose MGs barrels protruding from the nose tip.
You don't strictly need to apply the nose section to the fuselage now, but you must do that before adding the wings.




GEAR - If you want your model to be wheels down, each one of the two main legs has to be built as a "standalone" unit first. In fact, while the lower sides of wings incorporate the side "walls" of main gear bays, the front-top-rear panels come as two separate pieces. You need to build the two main legs on these pieces and then "push" them down through the open bays BEFORE closing the upper and lower sides of wings, but after adding engine sections.
Gear legs themselves aren't that difficult. Main tyres come split in two halves; there are locating pins, but I removed them since they apparently caused the tyre pattern to mismatch. Instructions also tell you which hub is to be used. Then, the job is simpler than expected, because each leg is actually made of three pieces only: right part, left part, and mudplate. That's it!

WINGS AND TAIL - Here is where I met the only real flaw, but I couldn't say if it's Hasegawa's fault, or if it was this single kit only.
The fact is, despite good packaging (maybe because of the high number of sprues) some pieces had suffered minor deformation. Gear legs were slightly bent and could be easily fixed back in shape, but then came the wings...
As I said, each wing is split in upper and lower half. But, while upper halves include part of engine "hood", lower halves do not. Engine bottom sections have to be built (they come split in halves, too) and then added to wing nacelles.
The problem is that, this way, the lower side of wings are almost divided in inner and outer sections, only joined together by the rear edge of the nacelles. In my kit, this led to lower wing halves being a bit deformed, thus spoiling the delicate fitting among upper-lower side, engine and gear. Attempting to fix that required some care, because trying to "force" the deformed pieces back to the intended shape could easily result in damaging or breaking the thin "joint", and this would mean a horrible "scar" on the rear of wing nacelles. In the end, I had to find a compromise between correct fitting and plastic stress.
Before joining wing halves, remember to open holes for rocket rails (if you want them) and add transparent landing lights. You may also want to scribe the radiator intakes on the leading edge a bit, since they are flat.
The two horizontal tail surfaces are identical and each of them can fit either on the left or right side.




ENGINES - Besides what I said above, be warned that, unlike gear legs, engine sections are NOT ambidextrous. Each one has its own inner and outer halves, and you'd better not exchange them, or they won't match properly wing leading edges.
Once the main structure is built, you can add the flash hiding ducts (no exhausts here) and the small grids on the supercharger intakes. The two propeller-spinner groups (both of them are the same) can be built at anytime and then added in the end, since they just fix onto two pins protruding from the engines. Interestingly, they will be kept in position and movable by a little rubber ring enclosed inside the spinner, instead of the usual plastic "cap".

LOADOUT - Now, if you put the bombs inside the fuselage bay and want to show them, you'll have to slice the bay door open, since it comes as a single piece (gear bay doors, instead, are already divided). Small pins on the bay edge will help fixing the doors in the correct position... unless you broke them off by mishandling!
Speaking of rockets, there are eight of them, each one being molded with its own rail; you only need to add the rear fins. Note that the rails are NOT all the same: Under each wing, every single rail is intended to fit in one place only (see the picture and compare the position of every "pylon" with rocket attachments). So, don't mix up the rockets!



FINAL BITS - What else is left? A few tiny details (such as the pitot tube on the vertical stabilizer), the transparent navigation lights on wingtips and, of course, the wonderful cristal clear canopy, whose frame has recessed borders as well. Before closing the cockpit, I added tape seatbelts and radio "wires" as a little extra detail.




PAINTING AND DECALS

This bird's livery (the same for both the portrayed machines) is supposed to be a little different from the common RAF scheme. The Dark green camouflage pattern is pretty much the same but, instead of the ocean grey on the top with sky grey belly, there's medium sea grey all over the plane. Spinners are reported to be medium sea grey too, but they appear to be sky grey in box pictures and I think they look better that way.
As stated above, there are complete markings for one machine only; so, unless you want to use extra decals, my advice is to choose this option, because I think the bright red markings and the funny noseart (not to mention the kill tally) look very cool.
Despite a very minor "yellowish" fading (the sheet dated 1999), I found decals to be simply excellent. They are very finely printed, they're thin yet not fragile, they stick well, and they are elastic enough to wrap around protruding details without the need for extra treatment (see roundel and markings on the right of the fuselage). You could get used to such good decals! :mrgreen:
On a side note, decals were very sensitive to water temperature: In warm water they sled off the sheet in seconds, but diving times became way and way longer as the water was cooling down.




CONCLUSIONS

Despite the nuisances I had with the bent pieces, this model was a joy to build and a pleasure to see once finished. I would highly recommend this kit without hesitation: its relative ease of building makes it accessible even to modelers with limited experience, or a good "middle step" before dealing with larger heavy bombers; while the fine details will be appreciated by more demanding veterans, and set excellent base for further enhancements.
At € 16.00 in local shop, the quality/price ratio of this kit is definitely positive.


GREEN LIGHT!