Jay Carrell Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Received my HobbyBoss P-61A's in the mail today. I was very excited as I have high hopes for it. The box size is only about one half the size of the Monogram kit box. Very compact. The kit looks very nice (except). Fit and engineering is excellent. The booms to wing to fuselage fit is the best of any P-61 kit. But we have a problem. Notice how Hobby Boss airbrushed the turret out of their original box art ? Here's why..... I just moved so all of my Monogram and GWH kits are packed away and not available for comparison. Is the turret too big or the fuselage too small? And the contour of the top of the fuselage looks way off... and the real thing .... They are going to have to fix this before any other versions are released. We can't have our turrets overhanging the sides of the fuselage! With that fix done, this will be a very nice , easy to build P-61. C'mon HobbyBoss, Git 'er Done !!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChesshireCat Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 no expert, but that's the wrong turret in the picture. It would be more interesting to see if the width of the air frame is correct, rather than laying parts ontop of it. Surely somebody has a set of line drawings to at least get a rough idea about. As for the missing turret, I read somewhere that more Black Widows were shipped without the top turret, than had it. How true I don't know, but your photo shows one. gary Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Carrell Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 But that's the turret that HB has created for their P-61's ! What's funny is, when they found the error, they airbrushed out the turret on the original box art. I'm pretty sure the fuselage is too narrow. The whole thing just feels small. And the turret and fairing are too wide. I really need to find my GWH and Monogram kits tomorrow. Once I have those, the real fun should begin. It's sad because the rest of the kit is so nice. Also it looks like they scaled down their 1/32nd scale P-61B (closer to an A) radome and nose. The new 1/48th scale kit appears to have a little extra length between the windscreen and radome mount as the the 1/32nd scale. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Slartibartfast Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 (edited) P-61A did not use the top turret. All turret production at that time was earmarked for B-29. The XP-61, YP-61 and P-61B had the turrent. So, the box art is correct for a P-61A. And only early A models were painted OD. If you want to build a P-61B, well, I don't know what to say. You are correct, though, the turret you show is oversized. Are there other turrets in the box? The rotating turret cause serious flutter problems and often a fixed quad-mount was used. It was smaller and shaped differently than the rotating turret. Edited October 30, 2014 by Slartibartfast Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jay Carrell Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 Actually there were a number of P-61A's that had the top turret. Most were not used in combat. Some had the non-moving 4 gun field mod (as used by the 5 NFS in Saipan in 1944-45) and a few were retrofitted. Actually the original box art WAS CORRECT. Because the parts are screwed up, they modified it. The aircraft shown on the box art had the turret . No other turrets are in the box. I guess this is why some guys call them Hobby BooBoo. The kit is very nice except for the fuselage shape error and the turret. HobbyBoss did scale up the front fuselage mistake they made on the 1/32nd scale kit. They have the 8" fuselage plug with the -A radome. And again, after the Ministry of Truth editing..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Robertson Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 The HB fuselage top is an easy fix compared to everything else that plagues the two older kits, inluding near 5" too short front fuselages/nose gear bay, and 6" short canopies (as per MAAM measurements)... The hollow at the base of the fins alone makes the HB a clear winner over GW's monstrosity... The HB canopy can't be worse than the Monogram monstrosity. It would be nice if we could see pictures of the HB canopy, by far the most important issue in all these horrible kits: I don't expect much good from HB anyway, since it is clear the two HB windscreens are not the same size, but it would be nice if the focus was on something that was actually a challenge to fix... Robertson Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Steve N Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Look, up in the sky.. ..it's Captain Hyperbole! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nerdling Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Look, up in the sky.. ..it's Captain Hyperbole! Too true. But hey at least we weren't subjected to this Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RKic Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Marty, I thought you abandoned aircraft modeling and went to ships because they're less unbelievably awful horrible bad bad bad aaargghhh!!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AlCZ Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Can i good understand - the upper turret is bigger but overall is P-61 from Hobby Boss best "Spider" on market ? (GWH is too expensive and Monogram too old....and in actual RoG re-box expensive too...) When is turret really bigger i hope in AM from Quickboost for few bucks... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
breadneck Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Shees, how far down do i have to scroll to find out what scale this new kit is? Is it 1:42 or 1:78 i need to know now. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Slartibartfast Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 1:48, as a perusal of the boxtop would indicate. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jwest21 Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 (edited) Can i good understand - the upper turret is bigger but overall is P-61 from Hobby Boss best "Spider" on market ? (GWH is too expensive and Monogram too old....and in actual RoG re-box expensive too...) When is turret really bigger i hope in AM from Quickboost for few bucks... Another question is the turret too big or is the fuselage too small? I am not sure from what I am reading. If the fuselage is way off, Quickboost may not even bother with a replacement since the whole kit would be screwed up. If it is just the turret, I would assume someone WILL do a correction, or at worst you could rob one from the monogram kit. Not to mention, I would still buy the kit if it is mostly the turret being wrong. If both or the fuselage is all wrong, I'll probably pass. Edited November 3, 2014 by jwest21 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dave Williams Posted November 4, 2014 Share Posted November 4, 2014 P-61A did not use the top turret. All turret production at that time was earmarked for B-29. The XP-61, YP-61 and P-61B had the turrent. So, the box art is correct for a P-61A. And only early A models were painted OD. If you want to build a P-61B, well, I don't know what to say. You are correct, though, the turret you show is oversized. Are there other turrets in the box? The rotating turret cause serious flutter problems and often a fixed quad-mount was used. It was smaller and shaped differently than the rotating turret. The first 37 P-61As came with the turret, including Skippy/Nocturnal Nemesis, the box art subject. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nightiemission Posted November 5, 2014 Share Posted November 5, 2014 The first 37 P-61As came with the turret, including Skippy/Nocturnal Nemesis, the box art subject. Dave's right about the P-61As with turrets. The shape of the crew nacelle top is all wrong. That won't be a real easy fix. The whole top looks like it would have to be redone. The issue with the nose gear length has been taken care of, thanks to SAC(Scale Aircraft conversions.) However, that set is for the GWH kit. I have no idea if it would fit the HB kit. Back to the turret, that sure looks like they dropped a 32nd scale turret in the 48th scale kit. Cheers, Terry Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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