Seversky P-35 by Wolfpack

1/48 scale
Kit No. WP14814
Retail: $29.99
Decals: Three versions, all United States Army Air Corps
Comments: Re-issue of Hobbycraft P-35 with new decals; resin airscrew, pre-painted photo-etch details, paint mask for canopy and wheels

History

The P-35 was the first aircraft from the design team of Russian immigrants Alexander P. de Seversky and Alexander Kartveli. When the U.S. Army Air Corps ordered 77 of these aircraft in June 1936, the P-35 had the distinction of being the first American single-seat fighter with a fully enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear. It was also the first all-metal fighter (save for its fabric-covered control surfaces). Sleek and modern-looking with elliptical wings, it caused a brief sensation and was the inspiration for Italian aircraft designer Roberto Longhi’s Reggiane Re 2000. But despite its flair and dash, the coming of war would bring home with cruel reality the P-35’s deficiencies as a combat aircraft.

But the P-35’s flaws in combat lay in the future. In the Summer of 1936, it was a coup for the Seversky Aircraft Corporation, which began as a private venture in 1931 and landed an Army contract for the fighter just five years later. The P-35 was derived from the three-place Seversky SEV-3 amphibian, which had set a record for piston-engined amphibious aircraft, reaching 230 mph (370 km/h). Like the Re 2000 it inspired, it would enjoy a degree of success in the export market. Sweden bought significant numbers of both aircraft, 60 examples of the Re 2000 and 120 of the P-35.

The construction of the P-35 was of a all-metal low-wing cantilever monoplane with fabric covered flight controls. It had an enclosed cockpit and the wings were elliptical, similar to the Supermarine Spitfire, with ailerons and flaps on the trailing edge. The main landing gear retracted aft and was partially faired, while the tail wheel was fully enclosed. The partially faired landing gear of the P-35 was a major flaw in an era where landing gear able to fully enclose within the wing were becoming commonplace on new, contemporary fighter designs such as the Hawker Hurricane, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Curtiss Model 75 and the Dewoitine D.520. In comparison the P-35 appeared awkward and outdated.

Delivery of P-35s took place between July 1937 and August 1938, but production delays prompted the USAAC to purchase 210 Curtiss P-36 Hawks, which had come in second in the 1936 competition as the Model 75. The final P-35 on this contract was completed in 1938, with a revised wing and a supercharged 1,200 hp (895 kW) Twin Wasp engine. This was the 77th aircraft produced and had a modified landing gear. This aircraft became the single Seversky XP-41 prototype and was developed in parallel with the P-43 Lancer.

The Twin Wasp radial engine initially generated 850 hp but was later upgraded to an improved version generating 1050 hp. It had a wide cowling, which enclosed one .50 caliber machine gun and one .30 caliber machine gun. This armament was completely inadequate compared to the contemporary European fighters of the time (the Hawker Hurricane had the equivalent of eight .30 caliber machine guns), but would later be upgraded in the P-35A to two .30 caliber Browning machine guns and two .50 caliber Browning machine guns. The P-35 also lacked armor protection for the pilot and self-sealing fuel tanks, which would make it dangerously vulnerable to enemy fighters once war broke out.

These features were not yet deemed essential to American fighter design at the time of the P-35’s service debut (July 1937), but in the early stages of World War II, particularly in the skies over the Phillipines, their absence would prove fatal to American pilots going up against more modern Japanese fighters. Only 76 P-35’s were built, delivery being completed in August 1938, with the 77th aircraft finished as the prototype XP-41. In a major blow to Seversky Aircraft, the Air Corps, when it wanted more fighters in 1937, unhappy with both the slow delivery of the P-35, and Seversky’s sale of a two-seat version, the 2PA, to the Japanese Navy, ordered 210 P-36 fighters from Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

The P-35 was sleek, aerodynamic and relatively fast, but its overall performance turned out to be a disappointment. By December 12, 1941, five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, of the forty P-35’s that had been sent to reinforce the Philippines, only eight were airworthy — the remainder having been shot down or destroyed on the ground. While the P-35 was a beautiful aircraft to look at, in combat it was not much more than that.

Although not a success as a fighter, the lessons learned from the P-35’s service would propel its co-designer Alexander Kartveli to develop the XP-41, the P-43 Lancer, and the largest of the series, a prototype called the XP-47. While it would prove to be no more than an interim fighter, the P-35 would spawn a lineage of aircraft that would ultimately culminate in one of the outstanding fighters of World War II, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

The Kit

Wolfpack’s Seversky P-35, a re-issue of a Hobbycraft kit first released in the 1980’s, is injection molded in grey plastic and consists of 66 parts, including four clear parts for the cockpit canopy. The kit features a detailed pilot’s seat, main instrument panel with raised and recessed detail, and engraved panel lines. There are two photo etch frets, one of which is prepainted, a resin airscrew, and a set of masks for the landing gear wheels and canopy. The resin airscrew is rather small and care will have to be taken removing it from its equally small resin block. The pre-painted fret includes both main and side instrument panel detail parts as well as seat straps, an overlay for the cockpit floor, and a part adding further detail to the two-piece radial engine.

The fuselage interiors feature crisp raised detail for the cockpit sidewalls. The airframe features crisply molded panel lines and a one-piece engine cowl, and separately mounted forward firing machine guns to be mounted in recesses that are molded into the upper cowling. For some reason, two different cowlings are provided, and one of them is completely smooth and devoid of recesses for the nose-mounted machine guns — however all versions depicted in the color plates for the three versions of decals provided are armed with nose-mounted guns.

Markings

Decals are provided for any one of three aircraft of the United States Army Air Corps, all of them appearing in a scheme of overall natural metal with pre-war rudder markings (blue vertical band with red and with horizontal stripes). The first version is a fighter of the 94th Pursuit Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, tail code PA 70, based at Selfridge Field, Michigan in 1937. It features a red cowling, red vertical stripes over the mid-section of the fuselage, and a fuselage marking for the head of a Native American tribal chief.

The second version is for a fighter of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, tail code PA 25, based at Selfridge Field, Michigan in 1938. It has a fuselage marking for an eagle landing against a black triangular background, and features a white cowling. The third version is for a fighter of the 27th Pursuit Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, tail code PA 41, based at Selfridge Field, Michigan in 1938.

Conclusion

This kit, while crisply molded and accompanied by an updated glossy instruction sheet with beautiful color plates for all three versions of decals provided, is a re-issue of a Hobbycraft kit first released in 1983. That said, the darn thing is just more attractive than any packaging in its other iterations, including the Hobbycraft and more recent Academy versions — notwithstanding the fact that it clearly borrows markings from the very first Hobbycraft release. Sometimes new lipstick works after all. Highly recommended.

References

• www.aviation-history.com
• ww2-weapons.com
• wikipedia.org