Curtiss Hawk 75A-7

Erik Leijdens Autor
New kit to start with🙂 The beautiful Curtiss H75 from the Military Aviation of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army(ML-KNIL in Dutch abbreviation). The kits plastic is from Hobbycraft and the PE and resin parts are added by the company that released this boxing, Musthave. Looks like a nice kit, only downside are the cowling parts, they are not correct for the H75-A7 of the ML-KNIL. Something has to be done there. And the camouflage are a real pain to get it right. On Dutch forums the discussion can unleash civil wars..

Mike Kryza
Interesting subject - I'm in.

Martien Lourens
Gewoon gaan met die banaan.. Erik

Wim van der Luijt
Count me in!

Wim van der Luijt
I'll go and start my Brewster....together with Mart we can flood this place with Dutch stuff 😄

arne vd burg
Gaaf Erik! ik volg.

Jan Voorbij
What a beauty! I wish there was one in 1/72.....

Rob van Dodewaard
way to go Erik,
and if it start a civil war so be it . we will back you up my friend. So let that not deter you

Erik Leijdens Autor
Made a start with the Hawk🙂. The instructions are a bit vague when it comes to the standard Hobbycraft plastic but when you take it easy you'll figure it out.

MWK
Sorry to be so late to the discussion. Does this kit come with a corrected resin cowl? The Hobbycraft kit of the Hawk 75 is not bad for the 14 cylinder Pratt & Whitney R1-1830 versions, but got the 9 cylinder Curtiss-Wright R-1820 version front fuselage completely wrong. If Musthave is going to charge a steep price for this kit, they should supply the correct circular cowling and shorter front fuselage.

MWK
Here's an image showing the similar cowling of an Argentine Hawk 75: amilarg.com.ar/hawk-75.html

Erik Leijdens Autor
Hi MWK, no they did not.. Which is the reason for me to put this project on hold. I hope that some day there is a aftermarket piece available or that i have skill to make one myself. Like the guy in the following link did: aeroscale.kitmaker.n..=view&artid=4723
It shows clearly what problem is with the Hobbycraft cowling..

Erik Leijdens Autor
If I knew it before this kit was released I never had bought it. I payed €45, which is ok if everything was correct for a 9 cylinder export Hawk.. But it's not so shame on Musthave I think.. 👎

Christian Bruer
That looks like a promissing start. I will take a seat🙂

Erik Leijdens Autor
Sorry Christian, this one is on hold.. So you can put your chair back😉

Christian Bruer
What a pity, but I at least reserved a place in the first row.

I just cheked out what about the mistake in the kit. I'm not an expert, but according to the link you have posted, the kit designer made a complete mistake. I cross my fingers your money is not thrown down the drain and there will be a replacement some day or you start reworking the kit parts. May this will be a challenge but a good practice and sucess at the end?! I wish you'll give it a try.

Cheers, Christian

Erik Leijdens Autor
Resurrected this kit finally! The French modeller who casted the correct cowling has casted one for me too🙂. So nothing more stands in my way to build a correct Dutch East Indies Curtiss Hawk H-75A-7.. The fit of the replacement part is quite reasonably good too! Still this kit will be a challenge..

Thomas Bischoff
I'm in 🙂

Erik Leijdens Autor
Welcome 🙂

Björn Svedberg
I wouldn't want to miss this! 👍

Daniel Klink
Very promising so far👍 And a great choice as well! Iam in

Wim van der Luijt
Great news Erik! I have contacted the guy too but never heard back from him

arne vd burg
Good to see it raised from the shelf off doom . Enjoy !

Jos Jansen
I had missed this, I am not so familiar with Dutch birds before or during WWII ... but this kit is definitely worth following. Cool that there were still non-commissioned officers behind the control stick ... 😉

MWK
Who do we contact to get one of the corrected cowlings? I have the Hobbycraft kit, and some aftermarket, so all I would need is the corrected cowling.

Erik Leijdens Autor
A lot of airforces had NCO's as pilots Jos. I believe that even In the 50's the KLu had sergeant's as Meteor/Thunderjet etc pilots.
@MWK, look at my link in in of my earlier comments. There you will find a review from the guy who made them.

Ben M
I love knil stuff, watching

Erik Leijdens Autor
Thanks Ben, me too 🙂

Erik Leijdens Autor
Finished the engine and managed to position it on the "correct" place..

Erik Leijdens Autor
A first coat of primer to check for imperfections revealed a lot of air bubbles in the resin. But overall it looks nice!

Wim van der Luijt
plastic surgery is looking mighty fine!

MWK
Erik, thank you. I have contacted the author of the article, Jean-Luc on the forum page. I hope he sees it.

MWK
Will you be painting the underside aluminum?

Erik Leijdens Autor
Good to hear that! Yes, bare aluminium undersides as per KNIL painting instructions.

Added some pics of the cowling with the filled air bubbles. I also have enlarged the resin flaps since they are 2,5mm too short..

Clifford Keesler
Looking good Erik.

Erik Leijdens Autor
Thanks Clifford!

Boris B
Hi Erik, Is this kit on hold again ? I built the Hobbycraft P-36 A kit recently and I was interested to see what you did with yours. Looks promising !

Erik Leijdens Autor
Hi Boris yes unfortunately this is on hold for a while now. I have to make the cooling flaps on the cowl but they have to be thin and follow the rounding and that's were I suffer a "BSOD" every time I try to make something. So this is on hold until the day I have a sudden flash of inspiration🙂