Seat with RAF Sutton Harness for

P-40B-M

(Tomahawk & Kittyhawk I-III)

1/32 scale

Cutting Edge Modelworks

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Meteor Productions

As has been discussed on a couple of occasions here on HyperScale, Trumpeter's 1/32 scale P-40B is a fundamentally decent kit with a few problems. The cockpit issues are the most obvious. It would seem to me that Trumpeter has probably misinterpreted the height of the sidewalls, meaning that the floor is mounted far too high. In fact, the cockpit seems to be around 1/3 too shallow - very noticeable in this large scale.

Trumpeter's seat also looks too short and squat because it has to fit in the shallow cockpit.

Cutting Edge released a full 1/32 scale cockpit for Trumpeter's Hawk 81 / P-40B/C a few months ago to address these problems.

They have now added a separate P-40 seat with a cast-on Sutton Harness to their range. This will be ideal if the modeller decides to correct or scratch build new cockpit sidewalls, a rear bulkhead and floor. These tasks might be within the capabilities of an experienced modeller, but fixing the kit seat would be much trickier.

This product is labeled "P-40B/Hawk 81 Seat", but it is actually more versatile than the title implies. The seat design was common for the P-40B through to the P-40M. A squared off seat was introduced during the P-40N production run, so this offering will not be appropriate for the final Warhawk variant (not a big problem as there is no P-40N kit available at this time).

So, you could use this seat in Trumpeter's 1/32 scale P-40B (Tomahawk in RAF parlance); or Revell's 1/32 scale P-40E (Kittyhawk Mk.Ia); or, for the truly ambitious, in any conversion of Revell's kit to a Kittyhawk I, II or III.

The seat is cast onto four relatively thin strips. A razor saw will make short work of removing these casting strips but do be careful not to saw through the bottom of that nice thin seat pan.

I am a bit of a fan of these cast-on harnesses. I think that they look great with careful painting and shading. This seat is well up to the usual high standards of Cutting Edge in terms of detail and casting. I especially like the authentic depiction of pressed metal, and the convincing drape of the belts.

If you are building a 1/32 scale Tomahawk or Kittyhawk, this will be a simple and good looking accessory.

Recommended.