Alright, let's take a closer look at the Hasegawa kit (ST19) which was originally released in 2003. The artwork features the bright red/white-bottomed Red 3 of the Papagei Staffel. The boxing is typical Hasegawa with a large plastic bag holding all of the grey sprues together and then a separate bag for the clear parts and the poly caps.
The clear sprue gives the modeler the choice of the early flat canopy and the later blown canopy style. While Hortenmann's aircraft was one of earliest Doras, it was documented to have been retrofitted with the later blown canopy by the time it became Black 1.
The rest of the sprues will be presented in no particular order... just as they come out of the bag. Here are two of the smaller sprues. The sprue on the left has the wheel well insert and some engine parts. The right sprue has the tail parts. Hasegawa, like other manufacturers, will often "modularize" their kits to allow for the release different versions. This tail is typical of most 190D-9's. The Late Version kit that I also have features a larger, Ta-152 tail that was documented on a few Doras.
Hasegawa was the first model company to correctly depict the open wheel wells that characterized the Doras from earlier Fw190 models. The separate wheel well insert allows for some nice detail but it also includes some pesky ejector pin marks that need to be removed.
The fuselage halves are contained on this sprue.
One criticism of the Hasegawa Dora kit is the shape of the gun cowling. Compared to the corrected Eagle Editions resin piece, the bulges on the kit part is exaggerated. The Eagle Editions cowling is left over from a previous build. Due to shrinkage and warping, the part did not fit to my satisfaction so I didn't use it. Instead, the resin cowling stood as a model to modify the kit piece, which I plan to do again.
Another left-over resin part is the Eagle Editions corrected radiator cowling. This one was just a hair undersized on my last Dora build. If I can find a way to incorporate it into this build, I will use it.
The kit instrument panel has some nice dial detail molded onto its face. I prefer empty bezels myself as decals make a more convincing instrument panel, imo. The Eagle Editions resin cockpit upgrade was purchased specifically for this build. Why Eagle Editions when I've had past issues with the fit of their gun cowling and radiator cowling? No good answer for that one. It was between Eagle and Aires and I preferred the resin/decal instrument panel approach of the Eagle IP versus the brass/clear acetate of Aires. Hopefully I'll have better luck with this Eagle Editions cockpit than I had with the MDC cockpit that I tried on my last Dora build.
The next sprue has the wing components. Molding is very fine and all exterior panel lines are recessed. There is a conspicuous absence of rivets though. Based on archive pictures of Doras in service (see the photo that I posted of Black 1 as a good example), I think rivets on this model are appropriate so I'm going to rivet all of the exterior surfaces.
The drop tank, landing gear and other small details are on the next sprue. Also included is a multi-part pilot figure, which you don't see much of these days. I'll post some closeups of the figure later. The exhaust pipes deserve a mention here. Although they are molded with solid ends, they are designed so that they can be added to the aircraft after all of the painting is complete. Always a nice touch.
The final sprue has some control surface parts as well as the cockpit tub and seat.
I'll continue on in a bit...