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| In 1964 the US Navy took delivery of the first specifically designed AEW aircraft, the E-2A Hawkeye. In 1967 the E-2A began flying combat missings over Vietnam from the USS Kitty Hawk and USS Ranger. |
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| In 1969 the E-2A was updated to the E-2B, with advanced radar, improved computer systems, and expanded surveillance and command control capability. Some E-2B's remained operational within the U.S. Navy until 1986. |
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| The Hawkeye is instantly recognizable by the 24-foot revolving pancake-shaped radar dish housing the General Electric APS-96 surveillance radar. The dish rotates at six rpm. and generates enough lift in flight to offset its own weight. |
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The Hawkeye's turboprop powerplants are key to it's efficiency and endurance. The latest
E-2C aircraft can patrol six hours on station at a 200 nautical-mile radius. |
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| This kit is good overall with the exception of the poor transparent parts and lack of detail around the landing gear and bays. |
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| The Superscale decals really added to the look of the kit, they went down perfect and blended smooth as could be. |
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| This is the first hi-vis paintjob I've done in a long while. It was a nice change and has got me started on some other colorful projects. |
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| This U.S. Navy "mule" (carrier tractor) is Verlinden kit #240 which is I'll just say it's a really great resin kit. |
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Kit: Fujimi #7A15 |
Scale: 1/72 |
| Decals: SuperScale Sheet # 72-165 |
| After Market Parts: None |
| Customizations: Scratch built seats and cockpit interior. |
| Cost: $10.00 (US) at the 1997 Squadron Scalefest. This was a fairly good bargain at the time. |
| Comments: This kit has a mix of recessed and raised panel lines. Fit is good on most of the kit although filler was needed at the tail/fuselage joint and at the base of the raydome structure. The landing gear is highly simplified and missing support struts. There is no gear bay floor or sidewalls so you can see into the empty nacelle. The biggest drawback to this kit is the cockpit transparencies. The clear parts are molded rough, foggy and at least a scale-foot thick. I polished and coated all the clear parts with Future floorwax but they were still fairly poor. I used clear epoxy to replace the small rear cabin windows. The aerials and antennas are styrene sheet and copier toner wire. Hindsight being 20/20, I'd use stretched sprue instead. This kit will be tail-sitter without lots of extra weight added to the nose. |
