Summary

Newly offered in injection-molded plastic by Bronco Models out of China, is a wide-tracked sWS Utility Halftrack sporting a 60cm infrared searchlight and accompanying night-vision IR equipment.

This "new" kit is actually a reissue of the high-quality Great Wall (Lion Roar) kit from a few years back. Aside from the box art and the color of the plastic, the main difference between the two kits is that Bronco includes a complete engine assembly. At some point GW introduced these parts as an aftermarket set you had to purchase separately for their sWS kits.

In Part 1 of this review, one of the “come away” conclusions was that this model is massive. Think in terms of a 1/48^th B-29 or a C-130. And yet, even a very large model starts out as just a collection of small pieces, with a set of instructions to guide the building through the project. In the case of this Mosquito, there are some 600+ of those pieces and not all of them are small, thus the rather large box in which the kit is presented.

As Part 1 of this review ended, I was about to begin the fun stuff….the gluing, and sanding, and painting, and the last few weeks working on the Mossie have been enjoyable, but not without some challenges. Remembering that this is a kit review and not a “how to build it” article, let’s take a look at some of the properties and characteristics of this product which should catch the builder’s attention.

Thank you to the great folks at Kitty Hawk Models for bringing a welcome new large-scale kit to U. S. Navy propeller aficionados. Kitty Hawk subjects are starting to fill out my collection more and more! Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us kits to review.

This new release from Kitty Hawk fills a long-standing gap in 1:32 scale early USN aircraft. The Kingfisher is represented in the scale modeling world by very old but generally still available smaller scale 1:48 and 1:72 kits, which can be upgraded and corrected by a wide variety of after-market components. However, I am unaware of any injection-molded Kingfisher kits in 1:32 scale, let alone a modern release. Thank you Kitty Hawk!