Italeri 1/72 Hawk 100

Originated by Hawker Siddeley and subsequently produced by its successor companies British Aerospace and BAE Systems, the Hawk is a single-engine advanced trainer aircraft, possessing light attack capabilities. The Mk.100 series feature additional avionics, an optional forward looking infrared camera, a redesigned wing and hands-on stick-and-throttle controls.

Italeri came in 1995 with their very nice 1/72 Hawk Mk.1/55/66, followed by the Mk.100 in 2000, regularly reboxing them ever since (also a couple of times by Revell and once by Tamiya). The specific kit is the 2010 edition of the Mk.100 version, offered as a gift in 2023 to my sons.

The kit comes in a high quality but side opening small box, carrying the same very nice box art of the 2000 edition, depicting the company's Mk.100 demonstrator wearing "Vietnam" style camo.

Upon opening the box, I was greeted with 82 light gray styrene parts, arranged in two equally sized sprues. Packing is nice, with the clear sprue in its separate bag, clearly an improvement from the 2000 boxing previewed by our Editor, where all sprues were loosely floating in the box, totally unpacked. Molding is first class, nice and crisp without any visible flash, indicating excellent molds’ condition through the years, with the styrene material itself being also of good quality. Panel lines are finely recessed.

Cockpit is well represented for the scale, featuring convincing raised detail for the instrument panels and side consoles. Though you are supposed to paint them, it would be nice if Italeri provided instrument decals that could optionaly be applied and succumb onto the raised instruments. The Martin-Baker seats are also adequately represented for the scale too, featuring correct basic shapes and molded on seat belts.

Landing gear is nicely done, but the bay innards are plain and tad on the shallow side, a trend not uncommonly seen at 1/72 kits of those times. The intakes feature average depth, so painting their rears black to add a sense of depth might be a good idea. The exhaust is good looking.

Transparencies are crisply molded and clear. Instructions are well done in typical Italeri style, coming in the form of a b/w printed pamphlet, containing a short history of the type, a sprues map, with the construction spread in seven basic steps, each including a few sub steps, all nice and clear, with color callouts provided where applicable.

Two schemes are provided, for BAe's -100 demonstrator, in "Vietnam" style camo, but with "European" like shades (Euro 1 green, pale green and "wood" over light ghost gray) and for RAAF’s -127 prototype variant in a very nice two tone gray, as it stood prior to its delivery, wearing an interesting mix of Australian and British markings. Colors are given in Model Master, F.S. codes and in generic form. Decals are superbly printed by Zanchetti Buccinasco, expected to work flawlessly, however I believe the Aussie decals are darker than the shade observed in reality.

Instructions want you to first assemble the cockpit and, together with the exhaust, trap them between the fuselage halves. 10 grams of weight are to be added to avoid tail sitting, I would add more for safety. The main wing and tail planes are next, followed by the intakes, the hump aft of the cockpit and the canopy (the latter can of course be attached, perhaps more conveniently, at later stages).
 
Landing gear is next, followed by quite a few “aerodynamic” bits (like filets and actuator fairings, with many of them having no positive locators) and finally assembly and installation of the wing tanks and ordnance, ending a build that, while not that complicated, will nonetheless need its systematic approach, especially when adding all above filets and the like.

Though dating in 1995, this is still a very good kit of the iconic Hawk: general shapes of parts look accurate, molding is crisp with nicely done recessed panel lines, overall detail, though clearly leaving room for improvement, is sufficient for the scale, transparencies are well done, instructions are comprehensive and the decals are sharply printed (the RAAF roundels are darker than should, but you can always go aftermarket).

Not that difficult to find and, in most cases, low priced, if you want to build a 1/72 Hawk, this kit is definitely recommended.

Happy Modeling! 

 SpirosPendedekas

January 2024

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