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The wait is almost over and Special Hobby's 1:32 Hawker Tempest Mk. V is just a couple of weeks away from hitting the shelves. Special Hobby have sent us the latest details and the kit looks to be undoubtedly the company's most ambitious and sophisticated aircraft kit to date, featuring CAD-produced styrene mouldings, accompanied by etched and resin accessories, painting masks and flexible seat belts.

"During World War Two, the opposing sides were constantly competing against each other to keep abreast of the latest technological developments, and as a result it led to ever more powerful and effective warplanes. In 1941, the new German Fw 190 fighter began to enter service and in response the British hastily developed the new Spitfire versions along with introduction into service of a new type called the Hawker Typhoon Mk.I. The introduction of the Typhoon and its powerplant into service was not without certain trouble and as restrictions of the Typhoon design soon emerged, Sydney Camm, Hawker´s chief designer, began to design a new fighter aircraft, partially based on the Typhoon. As the number of alterations to the original design was quite substantial, the new plane was to carry a new name, the Hawker Tempest and soon proved to be one of the best WW2 fighter planes.

The rather complicated development of the real machine may seem to be quite comparable with our efforts spent here at Special Hobby on the development of the 32nd scale model kit. As we aim to bring you a state of art product, all the pre-production preparations of the 3D computer data, the tooling moulds and their adjustment took quite a long time. But now, finally, the Tempest model is ready and we believe that we have been successful in our efforts. As the very first of our Tempest kits releases, the modeller will be able to acquire the "Hi Tech" boxing. The model itself is very finely detailed, but on top of that, it is to contain also fine resin parts, in the shape of the pilot´s seat, control column, rudder pedals, throttle control quadrant, cockpit floor, both styles of the main u/c wheels, tailwheel, cannon barrels, also both styles that were used on the Tempest - longer ones for Series 1 and shorter for Series 2. The kit also comes with a PE fret with seat belt buckles and other small parts for the plane´s exterior and interior alike, plus HGW laser pre-cut fabric pilot´s seat belts and paint masks for the canopy, various navigation lights and the u/c wheels.

The plastic parts come on eight grey styrene sprues and one clear sprue. The parts' surface is very finely engraved and also has rows of delicately rendered rivets. Through the built, you will be led by a full colour A4 size instruction booklet. The camouflage schemes and decal sheets will offer the modeller as many as five options, beginning with Series.1 Tempest of R.Beamont with D-day stripes and ending with F/L Pierre Clostermann's machine from the final stages of the war. The decal sheets also offer a complete set of stencils for the Tempest, including some stencils for the cockpit and also for the under wing fuel tank pylons.

The 1/32nd scale Tempest brings you the very best we have produced so far and according to the level of interest from modellers during the development of this kit, we believe it will be a huge success. We really look forward to receiving your orders!"

SH32052 - Hawker Tempest Mk. V "HI-TECH" will be available from 15/6/2016 - m.r.p: 79,90 Euros (£61.31 or $88.36)

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