Duke Hawkins

One of the most iconic German fighters at the end of the Second World War was the Focke Wulf Fw 190 D-9. The long-nosed Focke Wulf. There’s no shortage of models of the D-9 in any scale, so when a new kit was announced in 1/48 by MiniArt, I got curious. In 1/48, my first D-9 was from Trimaster, which was later released by Dragon and Revell. Then came the Tamiya and Eduard kits – of which I have several – which are pretty good. And now there’s the MiniArt kit, of which I bought the Advanced kit.

So, first is the price of this kit: I paid just over 50 euro for the kit, which is a decent amount more than the Eduard kit. However, upon opening the box of the kit, you see that there are a lot more parts. Like I said, this is the Advanced Kit, which also contains a complete engine and detailed gun compartment in front of the cockpit. The number of parts kind of demotivated me to start the kit; this isn’t a model you’ll build quickly, which could be done with the Eduard or the Tamiya kit. While I feel the plastic is a little soft, the detail of the parts is absolutely amazing. Like IBG with their 1/72 kits, you notice immediately that MiniArt did a lot of research for this D-9. The parts are molded very well – I only found a very small problem with the ribs on one of the ailerons – and I don’t see the need for any additional update set on this kit, except maybe the engine exhausts, especially if you make the effort to build the highly detailed engine, which consists of over 50 parts (!). I like that there are no ejector pin marks on any of the visual sides of the kit, which is especially nice on the interior of the engine panels or gear doors.

The cockpit parts look good, I like the seat with the seat belts molded to it, both lower and back part, but if you prefer to use photo-etched seat belts, those are included in the kit too. There are a lot of choices in this kit; like the tail wheel: you can chose a one-part tailwheel, fixed to the strut, or a more complex construction. However, only the latter features a weighted wheel. There are no less that 6 options for the main wheels, talking about being complete. How the kit fits, I’ll have to see, but when I find the courage to start building it, I’ll let you know here in the blog. I’m not wild about the chozen schemes, but hey, there are a ton of after-market decals available from many brands. And I’m sure that MiniArt, like with their Thunderbolt, will have many more releases of the D-9. So is it good? Absolutely! Is it complex? Yes, it is, but that is to be expected from an Advanced Kit. Good job!