Academy’s 1/72 Tempest Mk. V

By Chris Bucholtz

History

Spawned from an effort to wring greater speed from the Typhoon, the Tempest made its debut in early 1944 and marked perhaps the very apex of the British point-defense interceptor. While designers originally envisioned a clean, close-cowled, Bristol Centaurus-powered machine, this variant—the Tempest II—struggled through development only to reach production very late in the war. However, a contingency design with the Typhoon’s Sabre II engine and "beard" radiator, arrived in time to see combat, and in significant numbers—805 were built. The Tempest V had a maximum speed of 426 mph, and they became a critical component in the British defense against the V-1 rocket, knocking down 481 of the 1847 V-1s destroyed in air. When the V-1 threat was ended, the Tempest Wing was released to fly fighter-bomber missions over Europe, and the plane took on the Me262 with considerable success.

The Kit (click on thumbnails for larger image)

Academy’s Tempest V was also spawned from an earlier effort, the Heller Tempest V, and not from the Academy Typhoon. This is a good thing; the odd raised wing detail is gone, and the canopy, while thick, has the right contours. The surface detail is beautiful, consisting of recessed panel lines and judiciously placed recessed fasteners.

The cockpit consists of seven pieces, not counting the molded-in detail on the fuselage sides. A seat, seat mounting frame, and rear bulkhead assemble on a floorboard piece, with a single-piece rudder bar and a very simplified control panel mounting forward. The parts are crisp but rather sparse in detail; there are no seat belts, the floor is poorly detailed and the sidewall detail is rather heavy-handed. The control column, however, is quite nice, right down to the trigger button. Another nice touch is the gunsight, accurately depicted Hawker-style as supported in a cutout in the instrument coaming on a bar. The bar could be a little more in scale, but at least Academy took this detail into consideration.

The radiator attaches to a mount that also contains the exhaust section; these parts look great and will look even better after a dark wash. The exhaust stacks are nice, but they lack the distinctive weld seams of the real items. The propeller is broader in chord than the anemic version in the Heller kit, but its sprue attachment points are outboard of where the blades enter the spinner, giving the modeler a delicate and frustrating clean-up chore that could have been avoided.

The wings have deep, detailed wheel wells, although my example had sink marks on the upper and lower wings opposite of locating pins and slots. This is especially frustrating, since the panel detail is so fine; fixing these flaws could easily ruin this detail. The cannon are depicted as the short-barrel type, with one barrel protruding several inches and the other buried in the wing. This marks the kit as a Tempest Mk. V Series 2; the Series 1 aircraft had the long-barrel Hispano-Suiza cannons with Typhoon-style barrels. A nice touch is the horizontal stabilizer mounting points; Academy provides the first eighth of an inch as part of the fuselage, leaving plenty of room to clean up any seams when the horizontal stabilizers are added.

The undercarriage is delightful, with one disappointment. The wheels are exceptionally nice, and the two-part struts are unbelievable petite. The tail wheel is appropriately beefy, and the inner gear doors are terrific, with structure and rivet detail. The tail wheel doors are also nicely done, capturing the bulge needed to clear the wheel in the retracted position. Unfortunately, the main gear doors have two gruesome ejection pins sunk inside a maze of structural detail. Getting to these will be a real challenge. The detail is topped off with a petite stirrup step, belly-mounted antenna and pitot boom.

The kit provides an option of drop tanks or bombs. The bombs are of the proper British style, with a round fin cap and a long set of fins. These mount to separate pylons and have molded-on sway braces—very nice. The other option is a pair of drop tanks.

The decal options are ones that anyone familiar with the Tempest could guess: F/LT Pierre Closterman’s "Le Grand Charles" and W/CDR Evan Mackie’s ED-M. Both of these are immediate post-war aircraft in the dark green and ocean gray-over-medium sea gray scheme. The decals are very nicely done, with separate red centers to the roundels and small stencils that are nearly legible. The sky codes seem a bit gray, but otherwise these decals are terrific.

Built from the box, with some of the minor flaws cleaned up, even the neophyte modeler should have no problem building a great model. With a little more experience and some added work, this will be a showstopper.