P-400 Airacobra – AeroScale review | Arma Hobby

Tim Hatton from AeroScale reviewed the newest Armahobby 1/72 Airacobra boxing – P-400 version.

The whole review with many excellent photos of kit parts you can find on the AeroScale.net site.

We wanted to share with you here a bit of what Tim wrote about the kit:

The P-400 depicted in this release is an export model of the P-39 sold to the French and UK. It was equipped with a smaller bore 20 mm Hispano cannon rather than the standard 37 mm cannon. It also had two 0.50 calibre machine guns in the nose, and two 0.30 calibre machine guns in each wing. Other features that distinguished the P-400 from the P-39 were the twelve exhaust tubes on each side of the engine. In RAF service the P-400 was named Airacobra I.

Everything is packed into a single bag for security with the clear plastic sprue and ball bearings packed within their own bags. The decals and masks are placed inside the instructions. The surface of the plastic is a myriad of excellent consistent recessed and raised detail including panel lines and fasteners. There are locating pins and holes to help with alignment of the main parts. Parts are beautifully moulded and in scale, though some of the parts look very delicate. So, some care will be need removing them from the sprues.

Thirteen plastic parts make up the detailed office. The inside surfaces of the fuselage have fine raised detail in the cockpit area. The instrument panel [IP] and central console has sharp detail. Three small decals provide detail for the instrument faces on the IP.

The canopy and windscreen are one piece with separate car style doors. The doors can be displayed open and there is some excellent detail on the inside of each door.

The decals are produced by Techmod and includes the various insignia and markings, seat harness, cockpit instruments, placards, art work and wing walkways. The definition, registration and colour density of the decals is top class. The glossy carrier film is kept to a minimum. There are quite a few stencils to add and there is a dedicated section to their application in the instructions.

Markings options feature three Airacobras’s from the Cactus Air Force and include:

P-400 Airacobra white 13, ‘Wahl Eye’, 39FS/35FG, pilot Lt. Eugene A. Wahl, Port Moresby, New Guinea, Summer 1942
P-400 Airacobra white 19, AH736, 80FS/8FG, Turnbull Airstrip, Milne Bay 1942
P-400 Airacobra white 13, ‘Hells Bell’, BW151, 67FS/347FG, pilot Lt. Robert M. Ferguson, Guadalcanal, August-November 1942

Camouflage is predominantly dark green and dark earth upper surfaces and Sky type ‘S’ under surfaces. Arma Hobby’s selection of marking options is far from boring. All three feature shark mouths and options one and three feature nose or fuselage artwork

The kabuki paint masks are for the windscreen, canopy, both sides of the doors, wheels and I think the landing light. Arma Hobby do not provide any guidance for positioning the masks, though it’s not exactly rocket science to work out where they are placed.

The twelve-page A5 format instructions seems to be pretty clear. Construction instructions are colour coded and a useful aid in construction are the multiple view diagrams. The painting guide is in colour with four profile views of each subject. The stencil guide also has four profile view of the airframe too. There are several paint manufactures referenced in the instructions including: Hataka, AK RC, Lifecolor, Ammo, Humbrol, Vallejo and Tamiya.

Conclusions

This is a great addition to the series of P-39’s Arma Hobby has released recently and looks like another superb release from Arma Hobby. They have maintained the high standards of detail and quality we are now coming to accept.