Revell 1/72 Ta-152H-1

Taken from the box description: "Introduced in small numbers in the Spring of 1945 as a high altitude escort fighter, the Ta 152H proved to be the most powerful piston engine fighter in the Luftwaffe. The production fighter aircraft with pressurized cockpit could achieve a maximum speed of 730km/h." 

This kit is the latest reboxing (2013) of the model produced by Frog in the 1970s (as stated by Scalemates). The kit comes in Revell´s to be phased out blue side opening box, which shows Ta 152H-1 Green 9 diving after attacking a stream of USAAF B-17Gs.

There´re five sprues moulded in light grey and clear, the light grey pieces having finely raised panel lines. They´re all inside a single clear bag, with the canopy rattling inside the bag, without a protecting frame. The model doesn´t come with a cockpit, it has a pilot, its seat and the headrest, something that scratchbuilders will love.

As far as options go, you can make the kit in-flight or wheels down with spinning wheels. The propeller has to be installed to the engine cowling with its mounting peg first if you want it to spin, but if you don´t, you can just assemble the entire aircraft, and fix the propeller at the end.

The parts have some flash (not much), and it can be eliminated with the use of wet sandpaper. One thing that you do have to check is for the ejector pin marks on both sides of the lower wing half. Sand them or the upper wing halves won´t fit!

The decals look beautiful (just like every RoG decals), have the option for Ta 152H-1 Green 9 of JG301, and it comes with JG301´s band.

The model is old, it has no cockpit, it comes with raised panel lines, and there´re two ejector pin marks on the lower wing half.

The Aoshima kit, on the other hand, has recessed panel lines, it has a cockpit, and it possibly is pin-mark free, and comes in two variants, the H-0 and H-1. The main advantage of the Revell kit over the Aoshima one is the price, they were 5 and 13 Euros respectively on the Aviation Mega Store.

The low parts count will also make the Revell kit a good choice when you want to build something quick and, with the Winter recess approaching (I have one week in a month), this´ll be my choice. This one or Pegasus Hobbies´ Fw 190A-3 with aftermarket decals.

Francisco Santoro

June 2018

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