Fw 190 A-5 Cockpit
for Eduard kit

Eduard BRASSIN, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

Eduard’s 1/72 Fw 190A-5 Cockpit is available online from Squadron.com

I recently took a first look at Eduard’s superb Fw 190A-5 in its ProfiPack Edition here on HyperScale. It is this kit, and no doubt a yet to be announced Weekend Edition, that the cockpit set reviewed here is intended to compliment and improve.

Brett Green also used the very similar Fw 190A-8 cockpit set in a two-part build article here on HyperScale. Brett’s account should give a good insight as to what to expect with installing the Fw 190A-5 cockpit discussed here.

The cockpit comes attractively packaged in a blister pack with sponge cushioning.

Very clear instructions are included, with colour call-outs cross-referenced to the Gunze Aqueous and Mr Color paint ranges, but do not use RLM codes. The instructions detail the finish applied to the cockpit and are downloadable as a PDF from Eduard’s website.

Here is the parts map:

The casting of the resin parts is excellent:

As is the quality of the pre-coloured PE fret:

The set replaces all kit cockpit parts such as tub, seat, control panel, column and rudder pedals etc, plus alternative cockpit coaming featuring either a Revi 16B or C/12C gun-sight. Printed outlines of the gun-sight reflector glass are supplied on a transparent photo-foil to be cut out and mounted on the resin sights. The PE fret also provides replacement parts for the headrest bracing and internal structure within the sliding canopy hood:

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Thumbnail panels:

Please note: These Eduard CAD images render several coloured PE items as being brass coloured.

Plus a facia-piece to surround the open windscreen section:

Not everyone favours pre-coloured PE cockpit details because of issues around colour matching, posing seat-belts in a crumpled fashion without cracking the coloured finish, and occasional slight blurring of the printed detail. This view tends to apply to the most highly skilled modellers however, whereas coloured PE enables the majority of us mere modelling mortals to achieve levels of details otherwise beyond our capabilities.

This is a superb cockpit set; not just for its detail, but also its low parts count and simplicity of installation. Simple to use sets such as this one, with coloured PE parts, enables modellers with even relatively modest abilities to achieve detail levels unheard of just few years ago.

However, Eduard’s Fw 190A-5 kit is so good that we are potentially ‘gilding the lily’ with this set, but then that is often the case as we seek to achieve the highest levels of detail we can.

With this in mind, I feel it makes more sense to be used in combination with Weekend Edition kit (assuming there will be one) rather than the ProfiPack Edition, which already includes similar coloured PE details to those provided with this set.

I therefore recommend this cockpit set to those who want to better the kit’s already excellent cockpit detail.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Eduard for the samples and images.

Review Text & Images Copyright © 2016 by Mark Davies
except blue background images courtesy of Eduard
Page Created 7 June, 2016
Last updated 7 June, 2016

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