Sword 1/72 Vultee P-66 Vanguard

The P-66 Vanguard was developed from the BT-13 as an attempt by Vultee to make use of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 radial engine in a fighter. To help increase performance, Pratt & Whitney worked closely with Vultee in forming a streamlined cowling that completely covered the radial engine. This gave the Vanguard a very clean look, but because of the lack of airflow, the engine suffered from overheating. To remedy this, Vultee reverted back to a more traditional open cowling for the engine, resulting in the final P-66 form.

At the time of development, both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Air Corps were developing their own fighters of the same class, so Vultee looked to the export market for its new fighter design. Sweden was the first to step up, ordering 144. Unfortunately for both Sweden and Vultee, the U.S. government placed a ban on the export of military airplanes to Sweden before any could be delivered. England came up next, looking for another source of fighters to replace those being shot down by the Germans during the Battle of Britain. The USAAC operated a squadron of P-66s out of North Field, Oakland, California as advanced trainers. But the biggest recipient of the P-66 was China, with 129 of the 144 built going to the CAF. Shipped to India, they were then uncrated and flown over the Hump to the Chinese. While the P-66 had great speed, its maneuverability left a lot to be desired, and it was used almost exclusively to intercept bombers. With the introduction of later versions of the P-40, the P-66 slowly found itself being removed from the front lines.

Sword is a new company, and it is already making a name for itself. Its first release, the Northrop N9M-A, was very well done, and with the P-66 they have upped thestandards limited run kits should be judged by. The kit is crisply molded with recessed panel lines rivaling those of Hasegawa or Tamiya. The resin cockpit is very well done, with brass details and instrument panel provided by Eduard. The landing gear doors are also brass, providing both true scale thickness and an incredible level of detail. The only downside is in the landing gear struts, which seem to be a weak point in most limited run injection kits. These are simple rods, with no detail at all. They are to scale thickness, though, which may not be as good a thing as you might think. They look very frail, and would probably be best replaced by some suitably detailed brass tubing. The vacuformed canopy is very clear, with only a slight bit of distortion. It's a big greenhouse canopy, so you may want to go overboard on superdetailing that cockpit. You'll be able to see quite a bit on the inside. Two canopies are provided to help protect against an accidental slip of the knife when cutting them out.

Assembly is very straightforward, with no hidden areas to worry about. The cockpit, with its combination of brass and resin, will probably take the longest to put together, but when it is done it will really look the part. Some good painting is all that's needed to make an excellent representation of thecockpit straight out of the box. The radial engine is very well done, consisting of a resin backplate with the front halves of the back row of cylinders, and an injection-molded part consisting of the front cylinders. While this may seem a bit backwards, the injection engine actually has more detail than the resin one! The narrowness of the cowl opening limits the view of the engine, so the arrangement presented is more than sufficient to provide a good representation of the Pratt & Whitney R-1830. The propeller is very well done, with some incredible hub detail in the injection parts. The only gripe I have here is the separated propeller blades. You will have to glue each blade on, and there is no locating pegs or holes to help you in aligning the blades. With a three-bladed prop this is going to be a chore to get right.

The wings are simple to put together, but they do have one odd feature. Instead of having the gun openings molded onto the upper and lower wing halves, they are provided as separate parts. I'm not sure why Sword went this way, and it will take some time to make sure that all four of them are properly aligned. The wing-fuselage joint looks to be well engineered and will probably take a minimum of filler.

The decals provided are printed by Propagteam and are at their usual level of clarity, alignment, and thinness. Three options are provided: an RAF example flown in Canada, a Chinese P-66 and a P-66 in USAAC service. The RAF plane is finished in dark earth/dark green over sky, while the USAAC Vanguard is in the standard olive drab over neutral gray. The instructions call for the Chinese aircraft to be camouflaged in dark green FS 34058 over light blue FS35526. I am not sure about those colors, as I had thought the Chinese aircraft were finished in the standard USAAC colors of olive drab over neutral gray. If anyone out there can tell me one way or the other on this, I would appreciate it.