Eduard 1/72 Focke Wulf Fw 190F-8 Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

For a look at Eduard's write-up on the Fw 190's history, look at the Background section of their Fw 190A-8 release here.

Like any adaptation of a fighter design to the fighter-bomber role, a few minor 'tweaks' are required to achieve the proper results. Such is the case with the Fw 190F-8. This aircraft is essentially an Fw 190A-8 with the additional changes to support the fighter-bomber role. First, the engine is optimized for lower altitude performance since a 'mud mover' spends more time near the ground. Second, additional armor plating is added to provide protection against ground fire. Third, the external weapons racks are installed to allow for the carriage a wide range of weapons. While the F-8 was a bit heavier than the A-8, the aircraft could still hold its own against allied fighters.

We've looked at Eduard's 1/48 Fw 190 kits but this is our first look here at their 1/72 scale tooling. Where the 1/48 scale kit is somewhat over-engineered with lots of details throughout the model, this scaled-down kit is far more reasonable in complexity while not giving up the details that make Eduard kits great.

The kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on three parts trees plus one tree of clear parts, one fret of photo-etched details, and one fret of color-printed photo-etched details. Among the features/options in this kit:

• Beautiful cockpit with color-printed photo-etched instrument panel and details
• Color-printed photo-etch pilot restraints
• A fully detailed gun bay in the nose complete with detailed machine guns and ammo canisters
• Positionable canopy
• Detailed main wheel wells
• Positionable ailerons
• Positionable rudder
• Paint masks included for the canopy

Weapons included in the kit include:

• AB500
• SC500
• AB250
• SC250
• SD250
• 4 x SC50
• 1 x external tank

Markings are provided for five aircraft:

• Fw 190F-8, Black 11, 5./SG 77, Cottbus, Germany, 1945
• Fw 190F-8, Red 2, SG 2, Hungary, 1945
• Fw 190F-8, White 1, 1./SG 4, Piacenza AB, Italy, 1944
• Fw 190F-8, Yellow 14, SG 2/SG 10, Neubiberg, Germany, 1945
• Fw 190F-8, Yellow K, SG 10, Ceske Budejovice, Czechoslovakia, 1945

Two sheets of decals are provided, one for the distinctive unit markings and national markings, the other with a VERY complete set of maintenance stenciling. A sheet of the yellow-tape masks included as well.

I can see why Eduard was so confident with the production of this kit. Once you see what comes in this box, you'll want several of these kits!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!