Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-8
Standard Wings

Eduard Weekend Edition, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Graham Carter

Eduard’s Fw 190 A-8 series of kits was launched in 2015 and has met with much acclaim. It has been expanded into the A-5, F-8 and R-8 variants using the same or slightly modified sprues.As an A-8, it has been re-issued a number of times with different wings and weapon combinations in Standard, ‘Weekend Edition’ ‘Royal’ and ‘Profipack’ releases, as well as the bagged ‘Overtrees’ offerings to make use of the spare decal choices from the other releases.

This ‘Standard Wings’ version first appeared in 2016 and is now available again as a ‘Weekend Edition’, meaning no PE, masks and a limited decal selection but still with the great sprues of the original.

The kit comes in the now standard giant strong box with  great image of one of the decal choices , Red ‘1’ of Hans Dortenmann of 2/JG54 in France 1944, downing an RAF Mustang during the Invasion defence.

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Thumbnail panels:

The parts are beautifully moulded in the familiar mid-grey and the sprues are sealed in resealable clear sleeves with the clear ‘pin-wheel’ of canopies and sundry parts in their own sleeve for protection.

The subtle surface and interior detailing is beautifully rendered. As is usual with these kits there are a large number of unused parts destined for the spares box, in this case forty-one can be saved for later projects. As a Weekend Edition, the absence of photo-etch is compensated by decals for the instrument panels and seat-belts. In this scale these are more than adequate.

The A4 stapled instruction booklet begins with an outline of the development, usage and reasons for the ‘standard wings’. It illustrates each step with coloured line-drawings and the schemes are shown in colour. The kit includes a stencil placement diagram, again in four views – very thorough. Colours are indicated clearly at each step and are given in Mission Model, Gunze Aqueous and Mr. Color on a table below the parts map on page 2.

Markings

The four decal choices are illustrated with four-view drawings in colour and a nice variety there are.

As usual they are beautifully printed, glossy, thin and perfectly in register. A separate sheet contains a mass of stencilling for one aircraft.

The four choices are :-

1. Red ‘1’ of Hans Dortenmann of 2/JG54 in France June 1944, inRLM 74/75 over 76 with mottles of 74 and 75 ,a yellow lower nose and dark blue tail band with a red bar, a green heart and a broomstick-riding figures on the nose, and a black spinner and broad white spiral

2. Yellow ‘7’ of Walter Kohnne of 3/JG1, Germany May 1944 in the same scheme but with a red tail band , staffer badge on the nose and the name of the staffel’s dog under the cockpit,

3. Red ’19’ of Ernst Schroder of 5/JG300 in Germany, October 1944, again in the same scheme as the last one but without a yellow nose patch and with large blotches of RLM02 instead of mottles, and with his girlfriend’s name on the side. An addendum allows this aircraft to be reproduced at a later date with a bar instead of tail band and a fancier name on the side, and

4. Blue ’9+dot’ of Karl-Heinz Koch of 12/JG5 in Norway, April 1945 in the same scheme as the first two but no fuselage bands and just a small badge on the nose. This one has a blue spinner with a broad white spiral. Fortunately the spinner spiral does come as a decal!

It is great to see yet another version of this terrific kit in the ‘One True Scale’ and I would thoroughly commend it to the fan of later war Luftwaffe aircraft. It would be nice to see the earlier shorter-nosed A-2 to A-4 kit released in this scale - please Mr Eduard, as you have already done it in 1/48. Removing 2mm from the fuselage is a fraught exercise due to the complexity of the area in the kit.

Thanks to Eduard for the sample

Review Text & Images Copyright © 2022 by Graham Carter
Images Copyright © 2022 by Brett Green
Page Created 8 August, 2022
Last updated 8 August, 2022

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