In Box Review of Hobbycraft of Canada 1/48th Scale
Seversky P-35 Fighter
Kit no. HC1552
By Ray Mehlberger
MSRP: $13.42 (now out of production)
By Ray Mehlberger
MSRP: $13.42 (now out of production)
HISTORY:
The Seversky P-35 was a fighter aircraft built in the United States by the Seversky Aircraft Company in the late 1930s. A contemporary of the Hawker Hurricaneand Messerschmitt Bf 109, the P-35 was the first single-seat fighter in U.S. Army Air Corps to feature all-metal construction, retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit.
The Seversky P-35 was a fighter aircraft built in the United States by the Seversky Aircraft Company in the late 1930s. A contemporary of the Hawker Hurricaneand Messerschmitt Bf 109, the P-35 was the first single-seat fighter in U.S. Army Air Corps to feature all-metal construction, retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit.
Design and development
The origins of the P-35 trace back to the Seversky SEV-3 three-seat amphibian, designed by Alexander Kartveli, Seversky's chief designer and Seversky's first aircraft. The SEV-3 first flew in June 1933 and was developed into the Seversky BT-8 basic trainer, 30 of which were ordered by the United States Army Air Corps(USAAC) in 1935.[2] This proved grossly underpowered and was quickly replaced by the North American BT-9.
The second prototype SEV-3 was completed as a two-seat fighter derivative, the SEV-2XP. It was powered by a 735 hp (548 kW) Wright R-1820 radial engine, had fixed landing gear in aerodynamic spats[4][5] and was armed with one .50 in (12.7 mm) and one .30 in (7.62 mm) forward-firing machine guns plus an additional .30 in (7.62 mm) gun for rear defence.
When the USAAC announced a competition for a new single-seat fighter in 1935, Seversky sent the SEV-2XP, confident it would win despite being a two-seater. However, the aircraft was damaged on 18 June 1935 during its transit to the fly-offs at Wright Field. To compete with the Curtiss Model 75, a single-seat aircraft with retractable undercarriage, Seversky rebuilt the aircraft into the single seat SEV-1XP, replacing the SEV-2XP's fixed landing gear with a retractable undercarriage where the mainwheels retracted backwards into the wing, and an 850 hp (634 kW) R-1820-G5 replacing the -F3 of the SEV-2XP. The SEV-1XP was delivered to Wright Field on 15 August for evaluation, which was generally successful, although the Cyclone failed to deliver its rated power and the SEV-1XP only reached 289 mph (465 km/h) rather that the 300 mph (483 km/h) predicted by Seversky.
Protests from Curtiss led to the formal flyoff between the fighters to be delayed until April 1936. The delay was used by both Seversky and Curtiss to improve their aircraft, while allowing additional fighters fromVought (the Vought V-141) and Consolidated with a single seat version of the PB-2. The SEV-1XP was re-engined again, with a two-row Pratt & Whitney R-1830-9 "Twin Wasp" replacing the Cyclone and a modified-vertical stabilizer fitted, becoming the SEV-7
The P&W also failed to deliver its rated power—it put out only 738 hp]—and top speed was again well below 300 mph. While more expensive than the Curtiss and Vought designs, the Seversky was a clear winner of the Air Corps' competition, with an order for 77 P-35 fighters being placed on 16 June 1936. Modifications from SEV-1XP to production P-35 standard included partial instead of complete mainwheel fairings and seven degrees of dihedral to the outer wing panels.
The first production P-35 was delivered to the USAAC in May 1937, preceded by a company owned pre-production aircraft and demonstrator, the AP-1. Only 76 P-35s were built, delivery being completed in August 1938, with the 77th aircraft finished as the prototype XP-41.[9] When it wanted further fighters in 1937, the Air Corps, who were unhappy with both the slow delivery of the P-35, and sale of 2PA two-seat aircraft to the Japanese Navy, ordered 210 Curtiss P-36s.
Seversky continued to develop the design with the hope of selling more aircraft both to the Air Corps and to civil and export customers. It modified the prototype SEV-1XP as a single seat racer, the S-1 entering it into the 1937 Bendix Trophy, where it finished in fourth place. The competition was won by the S-2 (registration number NR70Y), a similar aircraft built for Frank Fuller of the Fuller Paint Company The S-2 also won the Bendix Trophy in 1939 and placed second in 1938. The aircraft was used to portray the "Drake Bullet" in the 1938 film Test Pilot.
Another civil aircraft was the DS, (or Doolittle Special), a single seater for James Doolittle, employed at the time by the Shell Oil Company, while the AP-7 was another racer, powered by a 1,200 hp (895 kW) R-1830 engine and used by Jacqueline Cochran to win the 1938 Bendix Trophy race and to set a women's air speed record Seversky entered two aircraft based on the P-35 in a 1938 competition for a new fighter for the Air Corps. One was the XP-41 (which had the company designation AP-4D, which was a P-35 with a 1,200 hp (895 kW) R-1830-9 engine fitted with a two-stage supercharger and the AP-4, which had a turbo-supercharger mounted in the belly of a deeper fuselage. The Air Corps preferred the AP-4D, which was ordered into production as the P-43 Lancer.[
Aiming to increase sales, Alexander P. de Seversky personally took a demonstrator on a tour of Europe in early 1939. As a result of this demonstration, Sweden ordered 15 EP-106 fighters on 29 June 1939, a development of the P-35 powered by a 1,050 hp (783 kW) R-1830-45, which improved performance by over 25 mph (40 km/h) and armed with two 7.9 mm (.311 in) machine guns in the cowl and two 13.2 mm (.52 in) machine guns in the wings. A second order for 45 EP-106s was placed on 11 October 1939, with a third order for 60 aircraft, placed on 6 January 1940, although by this time Seversky had been thrown out of the company bearing his name by the board of directors, with the company renaming itself Republic Aviation. The Swedish Air Force designated them J 9.
Nonetheless, despite its obsolescence as a fighter design, the P-35 design served as the inspiration for the promising Italian Reggiane Re.2000 Falco fighter which bears a superficial similarity in layout.
Hobbycraft of Canada was a model company that did quite a bit of aircraft kits. They were based in Canada and the kits were molded in South Korea. I don’t know if they exist anymore.
THE KIT:
This kit came in a shrink wrapped tray and lid type box.
The box art shows 2 P-35’s flying over a countryside. Both are in a bare aluminum finish.
The P-35 in the foreground has a red cowling front, an indian chief’s head on the side of the fuselage in front of 2 back fuselage bands. The black serial no. PA above 70 is on the tail and a red and white barber stripe pattern is on the rudder with a blue horizontal bar to the left of it The wings have a white star on a blue circle with a red center on the tops and bottoms of them and the black PA70 above the left wing. This is an aircraft with the U.S. Army Air Corps. (USAAC) of the 94th Pursuit Squadron, 1938.
The second P-35 in the background has a white cowling front, the three colors on the rudder, the black serial no. of PA above 69 on the tail. However, this number is not the one for this aircraft included on the decal sheet. That number is PA26 instead,. It has a white eagle on a black triangle as the squadron logo on the sides of the fuselage. The same national stars in all 4 positions on the wings. And PA 69 above the left wing. It is an aircraft with the USAAC, 17TH Pursuit Squadron, 1939..
One side panel of the box has 2 color illustrations of the box arts of other aircraft kits that Hobbycraft markets: a Vampire Mk. 1 (WWII jet), kit no. HC1573 and another version of the P-35 as the A version (WWII fighter), kit no. HC1553. These are followed by a list of the kit’s features: detailed cockpit and landing gear, engraved panel lines and authentic markings, in multiple languages – including English.
The other side panel says the kit is made in South Korea, followed by a side profile of the P-35 that is PA-26 (the markings on the decal sheet). Hobbycraft’s street address in Canada is provided here also.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX:
This kit contained 3 light-grey trees and 1 clear tree of parts, the decal sheet, the instructions, a card to mail to Hobbycraft with suggestions for other kits they should produce and a card to order their catalog for 3 bucks.
The instructions consist of a single sheet that accordion-folds out into 6 pages in 9” x 11 ½” page format.
Page 1 of the instructions begins with a black and white repeat of the box art, followed by international assembly symbol explanations and a repeat of the kit;s features in multiple languages – including English. At the bottom is a repeat of Hobbycraft’s street address in Canada and MADE IN SOUTH KOREA again.
Page 2 through 4 give a grand total of 6 assembly steps.
In step 3, you are to remove plastic from the front ends of parts C37 & C38 (the machine gun breeches). The amount to remove depends on if you want them to represent the breeches for 7.62 mm machine guns or 0.50 in ones.
In step 5, you are to remove plastic from the leading edge bottom of the rear canopy section. The canopy is in 3 sections and can be posed open or shut. NEAT!
In step 6, you are to file down the curved area on part no’s C11 & C12 (the landing-gear pants) to better fit the wheels and also to remove 4 mm off the top ends of these parts if you are going to mount the landing gear in the down position.
Page 5 has a 4-view for the P-35 no. PA 26. (already described above) In addition to what has been already said, the underside of the right wing has a black U.S. and the underside of the other wing has the black PA 26 over the word ARMY.
Page 6 has a 4-view of the box art subject. (already described above) In addition to what has been already said, the underside of the right wing also has a black U.S. and the other wing has the black PA 70 with the word ARMY below too.
Light-grey letter A parts tree holds, the fuselage halves, the cowling, the fuselage door to the battery compartment and air intake scoops (9 parts) I fail to see why Hobbycraft made that fuselage door as a separate part, because there is nothing to see inside the fuselage if you leave that area open.
The second prototype SEV-3 was completed as a two-seat fighter derivative, the SEV-2XP. It was powered by a 735 hp (548 kW) Wright R-1820 radial engine, had fixed landing gear in aerodynamic spats[4][5] and was armed with one .50 in (12.7 mm) and one .30 in (7.62 mm) forward-firing machine guns plus an additional .30 in (7.62 mm) gun for rear defence.
When the USAAC announced a competition for a new single-seat fighter in 1935, Seversky sent the SEV-2XP, confident it would win despite being a two-seater. However, the aircraft was damaged on 18 June 1935 during its transit to the fly-offs at Wright Field. To compete with the Curtiss Model 75, a single-seat aircraft with retractable undercarriage, Seversky rebuilt the aircraft into the single seat SEV-1XP, replacing the SEV-2XP's fixed landing gear with a retractable undercarriage where the mainwheels retracted backwards into the wing, and an 850 hp (634 kW) R-1820-G5 replacing the -F3 of the SEV-2XP. The SEV-1XP was delivered to Wright Field on 15 August for evaluation, which was generally successful, although the Cyclone failed to deliver its rated power and the SEV-1XP only reached 289 mph (465 km/h) rather that the 300 mph (483 km/h) predicted by Seversky.
Protests from Curtiss led to the formal flyoff between the fighters to be delayed until April 1936. The delay was used by both Seversky and Curtiss to improve their aircraft, while allowing additional fighters fromVought (the Vought V-141) and Consolidated with a single seat version of the PB-2. The SEV-1XP was re-engined again, with a two-row Pratt & Whitney R-1830-9 "Twin Wasp" replacing the Cyclone and a modified-vertical stabilizer fitted, becoming the SEV-7
The P&W also failed to deliver its rated power—it put out only 738 hp]—and top speed was again well below 300 mph. While more expensive than the Curtiss and Vought designs, the Seversky was a clear winner of the Air Corps' competition, with an order for 77 P-35 fighters being placed on 16 June 1936. Modifications from SEV-1XP to production P-35 standard included partial instead of complete mainwheel fairings and seven degrees of dihedral to the outer wing panels.
The first production P-35 was delivered to the USAAC in May 1937, preceded by a company owned pre-production aircraft and demonstrator, the AP-1. Only 76 P-35s were built, delivery being completed in August 1938, with the 77th aircraft finished as the prototype XP-41.[9] When it wanted further fighters in 1937, the Air Corps, who were unhappy with both the slow delivery of the P-35, and sale of 2PA two-seat aircraft to the Japanese Navy, ordered 210 Curtiss P-36s.
Seversky continued to develop the design with the hope of selling more aircraft both to the Air Corps and to civil and export customers. It modified the prototype SEV-1XP as a single seat racer, the S-1 entering it into the 1937 Bendix Trophy, where it finished in fourth place. The competition was won by the S-2 (registration number NR70Y), a similar aircraft built for Frank Fuller of the Fuller Paint Company The S-2 also won the Bendix Trophy in 1939 and placed second in 1938. The aircraft was used to portray the "Drake Bullet" in the 1938 film Test Pilot.
Another civil aircraft was the DS, (or Doolittle Special), a single seater for James Doolittle, employed at the time by the Shell Oil Company, while the AP-7 was another racer, powered by a 1,200 hp (895 kW) R-1830 engine and used by Jacqueline Cochran to win the 1938 Bendix Trophy race and to set a women's air speed record Seversky entered two aircraft based on the P-35 in a 1938 competition for a new fighter for the Air Corps. One was the XP-41 (which had the company designation AP-4D, which was a P-35 with a 1,200 hp (895 kW) R-1830-9 engine fitted with a two-stage supercharger and the AP-4, which had a turbo-supercharger mounted in the belly of a deeper fuselage. The Air Corps preferred the AP-4D, which was ordered into production as the P-43 Lancer.[
Aiming to increase sales, Alexander P. de Seversky personally took a demonstrator on a tour of Europe in early 1939. As a result of this demonstration, Sweden ordered 15 EP-106 fighters on 29 June 1939, a development of the P-35 powered by a 1,050 hp (783 kW) R-1830-45, which improved performance by over 25 mph (40 km/h) and armed with two 7.9 mm (.311 in) machine guns in the cowl and two 13.2 mm (.52 in) machine guns in the wings. A second order for 45 EP-106s was placed on 11 October 1939, with a third order for 60 aircraft, placed on 6 January 1940, although by this time Seversky had been thrown out of the company bearing his name by the board of directors, with the company renaming itself Republic Aviation. The Swedish Air Force designated them J 9.
Nonetheless, despite its obsolescence as a fighter design, the P-35 design served as the inspiration for the promising Italian Reggiane Re.2000 Falco fighter which bears a superficial similarity in layout.
Hobbycraft of Canada was a model company that did quite a bit of aircraft kits. They were based in Canada and the kits were molded in South Korea. I don’t know if they exist anymore.
THE KIT:
This kit came in a shrink wrapped tray and lid type box.
The box art shows 2 P-35’s flying over a countryside. Both are in a bare aluminum finish.
The P-35 in the foreground has a red cowling front, an indian chief’s head on the side of the fuselage in front of 2 back fuselage bands. The black serial no. PA above 70 is on the tail and a red and white barber stripe pattern is on the rudder with a blue horizontal bar to the left of it The wings have a white star on a blue circle with a red center on the tops and bottoms of them and the black PA70 above the left wing. This is an aircraft with the U.S. Army Air Corps. (USAAC) of the 94th Pursuit Squadron, 1938.
The second P-35 in the background has a white cowling front, the three colors on the rudder, the black serial no. of PA above 69 on the tail. However, this number is not the one for this aircraft included on the decal sheet. That number is PA26 instead,. It has a white eagle on a black triangle as the squadron logo on the sides of the fuselage. The same national stars in all 4 positions on the wings. And PA 69 above the left wing. It is an aircraft with the USAAC, 17TH Pursuit Squadron, 1939..
One side panel of the box has 2 color illustrations of the box arts of other aircraft kits that Hobbycraft markets: a Vampire Mk. 1 (WWII jet), kit no. HC1573 and another version of the P-35 as the A version (WWII fighter), kit no. HC1553. These are followed by a list of the kit’s features: detailed cockpit and landing gear, engraved panel lines and authentic markings, in multiple languages – including English.
The other side panel says the kit is made in South Korea, followed by a side profile of the P-35 that is PA-26 (the markings on the decal sheet). Hobbycraft’s street address in Canada is provided here also.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX:
This kit contained 3 light-grey trees and 1 clear tree of parts, the decal sheet, the instructions, a card to mail to Hobbycraft with suggestions for other kits they should produce and a card to order their catalog for 3 bucks.
The instructions consist of a single sheet that accordion-folds out into 6 pages in 9” x 11 ½” page format.
Page 1 of the instructions begins with a black and white repeat of the box art, followed by international assembly symbol explanations and a repeat of the kit;s features in multiple languages – including English. At the bottom is a repeat of Hobbycraft’s street address in Canada and MADE IN SOUTH KOREA again.
Page 2 through 4 give a grand total of 6 assembly steps.
In step 3, you are to remove plastic from the front ends of parts C37 & C38 (the machine gun breeches). The amount to remove depends on if you want them to represent the breeches for 7.62 mm machine guns or 0.50 in ones.
In step 5, you are to remove plastic from the leading edge bottom of the rear canopy section. The canopy is in 3 sections and can be posed open or shut. NEAT!
In step 6, you are to file down the curved area on part no’s C11 & C12 (the landing-gear pants) to better fit the wheels and also to remove 4 mm off the top ends of these parts if you are going to mount the landing gear in the down position.
Page 5 has a 4-view for the P-35 no. PA 26. (already described above) In addition to what has been already said, the underside of the right wing has a black U.S. and the underside of the other wing has the black PA 26 over the word ARMY.
Page 6 has a 4-view of the box art subject. (already described above) In addition to what has been already said, the underside of the right wing also has a black U.S. and the other wing has the black PA 70 with the word ARMY below too.
Light-grey letter A parts tree holds, the fuselage halves, the cowling, the fuselage door to the battery compartment and air intake scoops (9 parts) I fail to see why Hobbycraft made that fuselage door as a separate part, because there is nothing to see inside the fuselage if you leave that area open.
Light-grey letter B parts tree holds the wing halves (3 parts) The lower wing part is full span.
Light-grey letter C parts tree holds: the horizontal elevator parts, wheel pants and struts, tail wheel, main wheels, propeller, engine cylinders and rods, dash board, joy stick, cockpit floor and bulkhead, pilot seat etc. (38 parts)
The clear parts tree holds the 3 cockpit canopy sections.
The decal sheet, instructions and the 2 mail in cards complete the kit’s contents,.
I recommend this kit to the average modeler. It is a weekend project for sure. The kit still appears a few places on the internet for sale at about 24 bucks. I bought my kit years ago at Hobby Lobby.