TOKO 1:72 BELL P-63 KINGCOBRA KITS
Reviewer: Adrian (rec.models.scale)
This review covers the three Toko kit releases - P-63A (#112), P-63C (#113) & RP-63C/G (#114).
The Bell P-63 Kingcobra evolved from the World War II masterpiece, the P-39 Airacobra, and doesn't look that much dissimilar. As with the P-39, the Kingcobra follows Bell's radical design feature of placing the Allison engine behind the cockpit, a 37mm cannon in the front and a door to enter the cockpit that looks more suited on a car! The P-63 is not really an upgrade of the P-39, it is a totally new aircraft with a larger laminar-airflow wing and a totally new structured nose undercarriage. The plane thus seems to sit down more level than the P-39 and the cockpit appears to have been positioned further up the nose. It saw limited service later in the War with the RAF and USAAF who were both disappointed with its shortcomings as an airborne fighter. Unfortunately, it was also soon outdated with the advent of jets and did not remain in service for very long. The Soviet Union found them to be of more use and they were relegated to tank busting and ground attack duties where they revelled in the latter stages of the Second World War. France was also another customer and used their P-63s over South East Asia during post-war conflicts.
The P-63A was the first production version of the Kingcobra and was relegated to training duties due to many shortcomings that had to be improved in later variants. The P-63C featured a ventral tail fillet and a new intake carb and was the version used by the French in the South East Asian flare ups after the war and were well suited to the tasks. They were later grounded in 1949/50 mainly due to lack of spare parts and maintenance problems. The RP-63G variant is most renowned for being a 'target drone' for US bomber gunners. It was fitted with more armour plating that had sensors and electronics attached to the plating so that when a hit was registered, a section would light up to confirm this to the training gunner. As a result they were given the nickname "Pinball machines".
All the kits contain about 50 plastic parts in medium grey injected mold plastic and 7 clear parts. Each kit is essentially identical with each other, only minor alterations - being box art, instructions and the decals. Toko look to have done very well in-the-box with finely engraved panel lines and tons of accurately proportioned detail. Some minor amount of flash is evident, which needs cleaning prior to construction. The instruction sheet is quite clear with sprue diagram and again is the same format (and almost identical in every regard) for each kit. Humbrol reference numbers are supplied for the colour schemes.
The interior is detailed quite well for this scale. In the cockpit you are supplied with a seat, stick, and bulkhead with some detail molded on the area behind the seat. The side instrument panels are featured low and only the trim wheel is missing from an otherwise quite complete interior. The main panel, however, is a clear part and needs (along with the other consoles) some work to represent dials and guages. The other parts are quite nice and it looks as if everything should go where it's required in a relatively straight forward assembly. There are no alignment pins or grooves as such so it's not one for the novice who relies on these to guide positioning. The kits also include the flush intake but I believe that the RP-63's used the standard P-63 intake. The cockpit doors are molded as clear parts which isn't a bad idea considering, and allows the option of positioning the door open if desired, but you will need to carefully cut the framework.
Construction is relatively straight forward but be careful when detaching from the sprue, as the plastic is a bit soft in areas and easily gouged. Luckily Toko (with identical molds in each kit) has included all the three variants of unique parts to a particular version, for example, the three different intakes, so theoretically you could build whichever version you desire from whichever box you purchase. This could be handy if the version you wanted was not on sale, or was out of stock (of course, you need to be wary of the variations in construction!). While early construction goes together quite well, without alignment pins you need to do a bit of a dry run first before glueing into place. Gaps are also prevalent in places especially wing roots and intakes. Undercarriage doors are all one-piece, so if you are building a wheels-down example you need to cut them to place in the open position. The nose wheel-doors are the hardest since three pieces need to be positioned. Overall assembly was quite problem-free, just the usual amount of care and attention required.
Since the RP-63G's had armour plating housing those sensors spoken of above along the fuselage, their side windows were smaller than the A & C versions, which isn't pointed out in the instructions. The simplest way to fix this is to mask off a smaller portion of the window when painting, just make sure (via reference material) you mask off the right proportions according to the positioning of the armour plating. The rest of the kit is fairly smooth sailing so long as you are not a novice! Others shouldn't find too many problems that are worth warning about here.
The kit supplies a pair of drop tanks and another unspecified contraption that looks like a centreline fuel tank. Without clarification in the instructions or picture references this belly device was left off - the Kingcobra looks much better without it! I threw the drop tanks on the C and left the A in clean configuration to achieve "a best of both worlds" scenario. The Kingcobra also carried bombs and rocket pods so you will have to raid your spares box, or get hold of these from a separate source if you want these depicted on your example. It's possible to have the door positioned open as stated above assuming you know what your doing when glueing the clear part and cutting the frame. Two different spinners are provided for the option of having a lengthened or shortened version of the 37mm cannon. My material points to the P-63 housing only the shortened version so this is recommended (the lengthened version was found in P-39's).
A number of examples can be replicated with the generous amount of decals supplied by Toko - each kit having it's own set of stencilling and appropriate version specific decalling. The P-63A is mainly USAAF material with some colourful version potential, the P-63C has markings for four French versions operating in Vietnam in natural metal schemes just after the end of WW2 while the RP-63G markings include colourful and orange "Pinball" schemes, relating to its task as target drone for US bomber gunner training.
Overall these are very neat kits and are recommended for those who would like to develop something a bit weird and wonderful rather than the plain-Jane war effort, which thankfully Toko seem to encourage in their markings etc. The kits were slapped together with only a bit of effort needed and should suit all those of above novice modelling skills.
Related Reviews: HiTech 1/48 P-63C KingCobra
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