Eduard 1/48 Focke Wulf Fw 190A Nachtjäger Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

When Eduard first released their first Fw 190 kit, they'd created a detailed masterpiece which significantly raised the bar on kit detail without the over-engineering (putting details where you won't see them). The kit did have some minor fit challenges if you didn't pay attention to where some of the small parts go and frequently dry-fit your work. Nevertheless, you've seen many masterpieces built out of the various Fw 190 kits that have since come from Eduard's workshops.

In this release, we have the nightfighter versions of the Fw 190A and when you look at some of the parts images, you might think there are two kits in this box. In fact Eduard provides two fuselage halves and two wings to give you the option of building several nachjaeger variants. This kit is molded in light gray styrene and presented on ten parts trees plus one tree of clear parts, two frets of photo-etched parts, and a set of paint masks. Among the features and options in this kit:

• Parts choices for Fw 190A-6/R11, Fw 190A-7/R11, or Fw 190A-8/R11
• Beautifully detailed cockpit with color photo-etched instrument panels and side consoles and detail differences for both aircraft types
• A fully detailed gun bay in the nose complete with detailed machine guns and ammo canisters (MG 17 and MG 131)
• Positionable gun hood
• The most detailed main wheel well I've seen in an Fw 190 kit
• Optional open gun bays in the wing roots
• THE most detailed BMW 801 in styrene. This beauty has both banks of cylinders highly detailed and complete with the cooling fan and rear accessory packs
• A special jig is included to install and properly position each of the eight engine stacks that exit along the sides of the fuselage
• The top and sides of the cowling are separately molded so you can pose the panels open, removed, or buttoned up (which would be a shame to hide all that detail inside)
• The main gear struts are molded to be fool-proof for getting the right 8 degree angle offset of the main wheels to the strut and for getting the struts positioned properly on the wings. I'm looking forward to see how that works!
• Two different styles of tailwheel
• Two different canopy options
• Positionable ailerons
• Positionable rudder
• Elevators are not positionable
• Flaps have details inside but are molded closed/up
• Two different radar antenna configurations
• Centerline external fuel tank

Markings are provided for four aircraft:

• Fw 190A-8/R11 'Neptun', White 9, 1./NJGr 10, Werneuchen, 1944
• Fw 190A-6/R11, White 11, 1./NJGr 10, Werneuchen, 1944
• Fw 190A-6/R11 'Neptun', Black 8, II./JG 300, Lobnitz, 1943
• Fw 190A-7/R11 'Neptun', Yellow 1, 6./JG 300, Rheine, 1944

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. Yellow-tape paint masks included as well.

As I said in the beginning, these Eduard Fw 190 kits are the best in this scale and I'm happy to see these being reissued again.

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!