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PREVIEW
Italeri's 1/48 EF2000 Eurofighter
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Here's a quick peek in the box at one of Italeri's latest offerings, the EF2000 Eurofighter. Now, a lot of bad things are being said about this kit already, and I just wanted to clarify that I haven't built this kit yet, but at least in my initial assessment, this doesn't look like such a bad kit to me at all. There are just a few things that will have to be addressed during the build.
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If you're looking for a 'shake and bake' kit, this probably isn't your cup of tea. There are probably going to be some challenges in building the kit, but general shape and outline do appear to be good. This kit represents the two seat version of the Eurofighter, and the kit's cockpit instrument panels and side consoles are represented by decals. While this is not my favorite way of going at a cockpit, I do have to say that the decals provided are fairly well detailed. Besides, this gives Black Box or other aftermarket manufacturers a new project to work on! Another thing that hits you right away when opening the box, is that the recessed panel and rivet detail is very pronounced - you'll probably want to either wet sand the fuselage, or apply something like Mr. Surfacer to tone these down a bit.
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Stores include 2 AIM-9L/M Sidewinders, and six AIM-120 AMRAAMS, along with a pair of underwing tanks, and what appear to be ECM pods for the wingtips. The kit also lists two options for underwing stores, either the Sidewinders or the AMRAAMS. All parts are crisply molded, and my sample had no flash. Another nice little feature is the refueling probe, which can be built open or closed. Clear parts provided with the kit were scratch/distortion free, and also molded without the usual pesky mold line down the center. This means that only a light polishing will be required before assembly, rather than having to sand and polish out that seam line.
Four decal options are provided, for the RAF, Luftwaffe, Italian AF, and Spanish AF.
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To sum it up, while this may not be a shake and bake kit, I'm looking forward to building Italeri's latest offering anyway. This may be a little bit of a challenge insofar as the panel detail and cockpit, but I for one welcome the challenge, and am glad to finally see this aircraft kitted in 1/48 scale - this actually appears to be a nice little kit to me, and will look nice sitting on the shelf next to my F-16CJ and F-15C. I'll let you know how it turns out, as I'll be building this one after I finish my Monogram A-10 (now, talk about a challenging kit to build!)
As always, my sincere thanks to Lewis Nace of Testors for the review sample!
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