1/72 Grumman Prowler kits.

[stevej60]

Hi folk's,any thoughts on the choices and their merits? There's a couple of Hasegawa kit's I'm eyeing, an early boxing which has tinted glazing but the seller

is warning of a possible decal issue and a later boxing with clear glazing and good decal's I know this is a decent kit for the money and has good reviews.I

don't want to go the matchbox route is I've more than enough classic oldies to be getting on with but has anyone experience of Hobbycraft's kit?

[Giorgio N]

The Hobbycraft is a poor copy of the hasegawa kit, go for the original 

[stevej60]

12 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

The Hobbycraft is a poor copy of the hasegawa kit, go for the original 

Many thanks Giorgio.

[modelldoc]

Here I was on the Matchbox route, years before:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/15369183914/in/photolist-pq85Vy

 

modelldoc

[stevej60]

Now I've found a nice Minicraft  boxing with the Hasegawa logo on the box and what looks like the Hasegawa kit inside with nice decal's.

Took a punt at a decent £12:99.

Edited April 5, 2020 by stevej60

[Charles Dykas]

BTW, Tamiya Clear yellow Tint, sprayed inside the canopy gives you something that looks Like the gold tint.  Spray It lightly in coats or mix it with some Future.

[CT7567]

On 4/5/2020 at 11:11 AM, stevej60 said:

Now I've found a nice Minicraft  boxing with the Hasegawa logo on the box and what looks like the Hasegawa kit inside with nice decal's.

Took a punt at a decent £12:99.

The Hasegawa/Minicraft boxing should be one of the earliest releases of the EA-6B, but the changes in later Hasegawa boxings are relatively limited.  Prowlers went through a series of upgrades during their service life, each altering the number & location of external antennae on the airframe. None of these are major, but if you want to build an accurate aircraft from a particular era you'll likely need some references (the Detail & Scale book has a good series of explanatory diagrams).

 

In its initial release I believe the Hasegawa kit represents the earliest configuration (baseline airframe), but at some point the tooling was modified to an ICAP 2 version (in service from circa 1984). At least some later boxings of the Hasegawa kit include notes on the detail modifications needed for the individual markings in each kit (AFAIK the plastic continues to represent ICAP 2).

 

As for the tinted clear parts, in reality having these is a mixed blessing since in practice most, if not all, of the actual airframes had the irridescent gold film on the canopies but not the windscreen.  As noted above, you can tint the canopies yourself but there's no way to turn the tinted plastic clear.

[tmeyer]

I have one of the Minicraft versions and it has an early version (ALQ-100) Electronic Counter Measures system on it with the long thin probes extending from a couple of wing pylons.  You could just cut those off.  Later Hasegawa kits are a bit more up-to-date.

 

Will do one myself for a co-worker who flew them.

 

Tom

[Silverkite]

On 4/6/2020 at 10:22 PM, CT7567 said:

The Hasegawa/Minicraft boxing should be one of the earliest releases of the EA-6B, but the changes in later Hasegawa boxings are relatively limited.  Prowlers went through a series of upgrades during their service life, each altering the number & location of external antennae on the airframe. None of these are major, but if you want to build an accurate aircraft from a particular era you'll likely need some references (the Detail & Scale book has a good series of explanatory diagrams).

 

In its initial release I believe the Hasegawa kit represents the earliest configuration (baseline airframe), but at some point the tooling was modified to an ICAP 2 version (in service from circa 1984). At least some later boxings of the Hasegawa kit include notes on the detail modifications needed for the individual markings in each kit (AFAIK the plastic continues to represent ICAP 2).

 

As for the tinted clear parts, in reality having these is a mixed blessing since in practice most, if not all, of the actual airframes had the irridescent gold film on the canopies but not the windscreen.  As noted above, you can tint the canopies yourself but there's no way to turn the tinted plastic clear.

I don't think Hasegawa ever changed or revised EA-6B boxes as I tried to do a stare contest between the contents of mine 1986~ish box, and a 1983 kit pics from the internet even though the instructions I have are for K12 or K014 kit but since the box is missing and I can't find its decals I'm not sure if it was indeed that kit or not... Anway fuselage parts and antenna layout are the same, they both have the two different IFR probes, ALQ-100 on wing pylons and so on, I also have a 00893 box, contents are the same, the only things Hasegawa changed was the presence of tinted canopy parts in early boxes which was then changed to clear parts on latter releases.

Also on certain boxes Hasegawa put an extra pamphlet with instructions for the re-movement of certain antennas and instructions to scratch newer ones with plasticard, nevertheless said pamphlet it's not present on any given box with VERY VISIBLE later ICAP mods and markings and I fail to understand why.

 

Luigi

Edited April 8, 2020 by Silverkite

[CT7567]

On 4/8/2020 at 10:07 AM, Silverkite said:

I don't think Hasegawa ever changed or revised EA-6B boxes as I tried to do a stare contest between the contents of mine 1986~ish box, and a 1983 kit pics from the internet even though the instructions I have are for K12 or K014 kit but since the box is missing and I can't find its decals I'm not sure if it was indeed that kit or not... Anway fuselage parts and antenna layout are the same, they both have the two different IFR probes, ALQ-100 on wing pylons and so on, I also have a 00893 box, contents are the same, the only things Hasegawa changed was the presence of tinted canopy parts in early boxes which was then changed to clear parts on latter releases.

Also on certain boxes Hasegawa put an extra pamphlet with instructions for the re-movement of certain antennas and instructions to scratch newer ones with plasticard, nevertheless said pamphlet it's not present on any given box with VERY VISIBLE later ICAP mods and markings and I fail to understand why.

 

Luigi

It sounds like you are comparing two kits that both predate the changes.  While I acknowledge I do not currently have access to my Prowler kits to confirm, the information on tooling changes comes from the Detail & Scale volume, which states in part:

 

"In Kit K14X, there were small changes in the plastic.  The fairing at the base of the rudder was made larger and less tapered, and the antenna pattern on the spine was changed to reflect the ICAP-2 configuration."

 

Scalemates shows a 1987 release date for the K14X boxing, which would track with the ICAP-2 first entering the fleet in 1984.  The Detail & Scale book was published in 1994, which I believe predates the later boxings we both referred to that have the ICAP-2 plastic with insert notes on the antennae changes to match the later configurations depicted in the decals.

[Silverkite]

22 hours ago, CT7567 said:

It sounds like you are comparing two kits that both predate the changes.  While I acknowledge I do not currently have access to my Prowler kits to confirm, the information on tooling changes comes from the Detail & Scale volume, which states in part:

 

"In Kit K14X, there were small changes in the plastic.  The fairing at the base of the rudder was made larger and less tapered, and the antenna pattern on the spine was changed to reflect the ICAP-2 configuration."

 

Scalemates shows a 1987 release date for the K14X boxing, which would track with the ICAP-2 first entering the fleet in 1984.  The Detail & Scale book was published in 1994, which I believe predates the later boxings we both referred to that have the ICAP-2 plastic with insert notes on the antennae changes to match the later configurations depicted in the decals.

I will check shapes of the two kits I own, thanks

 

Luigi