1/48 P-40E Kits

Can anyone address the pro's and cons of the two 1/48 P-40E kits on the market? (The AmTech with the corrected fuselage and the recent release from Haseawa). Thanks in advance.

This is like comparing the Tamiya P-51B to the Monogram P-51B.

The AMTech kit is not bad. The shape is good and the surface detail is acceptable. That said, it's still a basic kit with hard to fit cowling panels and inaccurate landing gear.

Outside of the cockpit the Hasegawa E rivals the Tamiya P-47. It's extremely well detailed, production quality is high, the landing gear is accurate (except I think the angle of the braces in the wheel well is not correct), the clear parts are good (and they include all the navigation and formation lights) and there are a number of extra pieces on the sprues for mods or later production models.

The weak points of the Hasegawa kit are the cockpit interior (an absolutely gorgeous instrument panel and very accurate seat bucket mated to rudimentary sidewalls), the indifferent fit of the insert panels that will require careful filling and sanding not to lose too much surface detail, the representation of the wing ribs in the wheel wells, solid exhaust stacks (if you can mold hollowed out machine guns you can mold hollowed out exhausts, a few unfortunately placed ejector pin marks and the softest styrene I've ever worked with. All minor gripes I know, but that's all I've got.

Some interesting anomalies in the box. The decal sheet includes markings for four propeller blades-Curtiss insignia, info stencils and tip color. The only four bladed P-40 I know of is the P-40Q, and that's not a simple insert swap from any other version of the P-40. The extra parts include a loop antenna as seen on many P-40Ns in China, and a tear-drop antenna I've only seen on a few civilian Warbirds. Could Hasegawa intend to box up some P-40s with civilian markings?

Steve