Focke-Wulf Ta 183
Preview

AMtech, 1/48 Scale

AMtech's 1/48 scale Ta 183 may be pre-ordered now at Squadron.com for USD$33.96

Reviewed by Lynn Ritger

When at the IPMS Nationals last month, I was approached by a veritable bear of a man, who recognized my name on my tag.

"Oh great", I thought, "I haven't had a good butt-kicking in a while. Maybe I can talk my way out of it..." Fortunately, Alan Griffiths brought far more pleasant tidings! He reached into the ubiquitous plastic bag he was toting, and pulled out a kit which made my jaw drop in amazement...a perfectly molded 1/48 Focke Wulf Ta183.

Looking the kit over quickly, I asked Alan where he got this beauty. "I made it", was his reply.

Alan, you see, is the man behind a brand new model company called AMTech, and this company has aimed a plastic arrow right at the heart of the modeling industry. Everything about this Ta183 kit shouts "quality", and in fact could easily be mistaken for a Tamiya offering.

The crispness of the molding, the intelligent parts breakdown, the consistency of the panel lines, the impeccable fit of the parts, the thin and crisply molded canopy...in short, this is virtually a perfect kit, from an assembly standpoint.

You get 51 dark grey plastic parts, and one clear part; the canopy and windscreen are molded integrally, but do have an engraved line to facilitate cutting apart should you so desire.

Some of the highpoints of the kit, to my eyes, are the following:

• Choice of perfectly fitting tailcones for either HeS011 or Jumo 004 engines

• Full set of well-done two piece X 4 missles

• Very intelligent maingear design, with the retract strut molded integrally with the main strut. This should help ensure proper alignment is easily attainable.

• Cockpit detail is better than some recent Tamiya offerings; the instrument panel has very delicately molded instruments which look great with a drybrush application, and a Heinkel He162-style ejection seat.

• Perfect (and I mean that, absolutely perfect) fuselage and wing alignments; the mating surfaces are perfectly matched, and will require no filler, just a swipe with a fine sanding stick to make disappear.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images and notes:

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I did note the nosecap looks like it will require a bit of care when affixing to the fuselage; no alignment pins are provided, which is not a bad thing, but you'll want to be careful anyhow.

The only thing I'm not excited about on this kit is the main wheel pattern; the tires look great, but the wheel hubs look strange, for some reason. I believe I'll be replacing mine with a set of main wheels from a Messerschmitt Me 262.

Aside from that one admittedly small nitpick, this is a phenomenal kit. There is simply no other way to describe it. The price point for this kit is expected to be around $40.00 US according to Alan, and I would say this kit is worth every bit of it. I've not completed construction of the kit yet, for the sole reason that I've been toting it to both our local IPMS club meetings for the past few weeks, where it received a universally enthusiastic welcome. I've launched into it with a vengeance, though, and I do believe it will take longer to paint than to build!

To sum up, make yourself familiar with this name - AMTech. Whether you like Luft 46 designs or just enjoy building quality kits, this one is a must-have.

Thanks to Alan of AMtech for the Review Sample.