Reviews : Revell-Monogram P-61 Black Widow Fighter Plane

P-61 Black Widow Fighter Plane
Revell-Monogram P-61 Black Widow Fighter Plane
$24.09

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5-Star: 8 (54 ratings)
4-Star: 13 (7 ratings)
3-Star: 4 (5 ratings)
2-Star: 6 (2 ratings)
1-Star: 3 (4 ratings)

Reviews

A good effort from Revell.
I reviewed other Revell kits and I stated in one that you get what you pay for. At US$19.95, I can't complain about the price, but the kit needs improvement. 1. The instructions are vague and omitted the installation of a couple of parts. The decal instructions are poor to say the least. Revell, go buy a Trumpter model and see how they do it with color drawings and precise pointers. When fitting the decals, ignore the instructions and look online for photos or refer to the pictures on the side of the box. 2. The front forward (pilot) canopy top was not sized for correct fitment for a closed position. I used canopy glue, which dries clear to fill in the gaps if you want a wheels-up model as I created. Use a toothpick to dab the glue into the gaps. Also use the same method to fill other gaps where the canopy doesn't fit flush with the fuselage. 3. Fitment of parts was surprisingly quite good! As previously mentioned, I created a wheels-up model and the wheel bay doors fit well in the closed position. The optional external fuel tanks fit satisfactorily; to fit them, you need to cut a slot and hole in the underside of the wings where the molding is thin which is easy to locate. I chose not to glue the nose cone on because behind it is the radar gear, and it was a shame to cover it up. The nose fits snugly enough dry so that it doesn't fall off. 4. The decals are quick to separate from the sheet, so you need to be diligent when applying them. When applying the red and white stripe decals to the rudders, use a toothpick to push the decal into the seams. The quality of the decals is good; they aren't too delicate in that they don't tear easily. 5. Cockpit detail is quite good and if you are keen, spend some time to detail the gauges and interior. You could go the extra mile and make your own seat harnesses. Refer to online photos of cockpits and emulate the real thing. 6. Sprues had lots of flash so you need to be patient to clean the parts. For a kit under US$20, I am satisfied with the quality of the product. The instructions are the worst part of this kit, but if you are diligent and refer to online sources, you can build a very presentable representation. I bought from Hobbylinc the Polar Lights Universal Dome Base to mount the plane in flight, so this model works well as a wheels-up or grounded plane. Enjoy your modelling!
Lady in the dark, The P-61 Black Widow
I've read a lot bad reviews on this kit so I built one to see if its really all that bad. The kit was first issued in 1974 so we're dealing with 49 year-old molds and the assembly of the big pieces; wings, tail, booms and fuselage in correct alignment. The fuselage actually fits together well but don't rush the cannon bay area or you will have problems. The color callouts for the cockpit were not even close so I went to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum website to look at the cockpit photos of the P-61B that they are restoring to flight-worthy status. No matter what kit you are building this is a good source of color and detail info for the Black Widow. I buit this kit OOB so no Quickboost or Eduard stuff was used. The booms, wings and stabiliser went together easily but the big challenge is still to get them into a properly aligned airplane! I spent some time test fitting the wings to the booms to minimize the gaps by sanding down the ridge on the boom wing-seat area and then glued the wings to the booms with almost no gap under the wings. I checked the fit at the wing-root and glued the first wing/boom assembly to the fuselage and let it set overnight. I installed remaining wing/boom assembly the next day using the first one as an aligning reference point and carefully slipped the stabiliser between the booms. Some rubber bands, tape and a couple of boxes held everything in place while the glue set up. The rest of the model was a straight-forward build but I didn't install the radar since the nose was filled with a lead weight. I have only put the national insignia, walkway stripes and some stencils on for now since I am trying to get more info on the P-61B that did the recon and distraction flights for the Cabanatuan POW camp rescue mission in 1945. My grandfather was a prisoner there until December 1944 and he had been taken to Japan just weeks before the raid. He would not return to the U.S. until October 1946. I don't recommend this model for beginners but any modeller who has some experience with less than stellar fit and alignment shouldn't have any serious problems and at less than thirty dollars its not a bad kit.
Challenging Widow
Is this a good kit? Yes. Is it good for the price? Absolutely! Will it eventually build into a nice kit? I think that depends upon your skill level. The fit is generally okay but count on some issues with at the wing root and with the rear boom. Flash is an issue. One of the maintainers has a hole in both his front and back. The canopy is a bit of a nightmare. Its great to have the options to have windows open, but....the fit, especially for the radar operators rear position was poor. I highly encourage you to put in the side windows for the radar operator before you put the fuselage together as its tough to get them in without marring the clear plastic. I had to pack weight into the nose (eliminating the change to leave the radar displayed AND the right side engine) to have her sit on the nose gear properly. That said, the final product is really cool. One could argue all day for flat or gloss black. I split the middle and painted overall semi-gloss with the rudders and flaps flat black showing more distress. I also highlighted with silver for wear and tear on the wing leading edges and areas where maintenance would work, especially those open engine covers. Finally the decals with my kit didn't have the red lines for the upper wing area. Hopefully mine was a mistake, and if needed, you could paint them but...putting those decals down requires some experience and patience. So, this kit has its challenges, and you will be potentially frustrated, but stick with it - this is a beautiful kit when completed. As always, HAVE FUN (and mutter under your breath about the canopy issues).
bargain price for this level of detail.
By: bkatz4
this kit has huge potential. an experienced modeler can cope with the few issues i encountered, but i can see how less experienced ones might go off the rails. overall, i had a blast building this model. i love picking out details with paint and you get plenty right out of the box here.there is not an over-abundance of parts, but that makes it move along at a fun pace. parts fit was generally good, but if you want to display the forward canopy top closed, like i did, you need to widen it with strips of plastic and fill some minor gaps. also, make sure you install the front gear bay floor before you join the fuselage halves, or you will risk splitting it open prying it to get it in there. this was the only real issue i found in the instructions. the decals were pretty good, except the red and yellow stencil decals virtually disappeared over the black paint. i removed mine since they didn't show at all except for a shiny spot. engine nacelles usually are notorious for poor fit at the main wing, but i found these almost a pleasure, with almost no gaps at all. in fact, bodywork on this model was minimal and pretty easy. some filler and sanding and primer were used, but none to excessive levels. i find it hard to knock this kit and actually found myself praising it often while building it and showing it off. everyone who sees it loves it, as do i. i highly recommend it to anyone with patience and at least some modelling skill, or assisted by someone with those skills. the results are very satisfying and rewarding.
Great Airplane, lousy model
The P 61 was a great aircraft in it's day, and I like the way it looks, however the Monogram/Revell model kit is disgraceful. There are some nice details though few of them, but there are major fit issue with this kit. The clear parts for all the windows. and there are a lot of windows on this plane, do not fit right, in fact there are some rather big gaps. There are basically fit problems all over the kit. The only parts that fit together well were the wings half, and the fuselage half. The kit can be built but you must do a lot of sanding, cutting and puttying to get some of the parts to even line up. In summary, I bought this kit from a friend who had it sitting in his garage for some time, and I found out it is one of the old original Monogram kits. I paid $20 for it but it was not worth it. This particular kit should be around $12-$15 at the most. I like the 1/48 scale and have built the P47 from Revell, and it went together much better than the P61. I am now in the beginning stages of putting together the Revell B25J, and so far the fit seems pretty good.
great detail, great pice, but in part, same old Revell
When I was shipped the kit, I opened it, saw the great interior detail and worried right away on how the fuselage would fit together, having had the problem in many Revell kits over the years. The detail is very good, indeed, for the interior, engine (one side) and landing gear: but, problems came up with the fuselage deck piece (warped) in the fit of the two halves of the fuselage, as well as poor fit on all major halves in the assembly. They required putty and sanding to too much a degree than should be necessary. )Also sanding black-molded plastic creates its own worries). However, once finished it makes a fine display model with a great price for the kit, It goes well next to Revell's B-25 kit Wow, is it big! one last complaint. There is beautiful detail in the forward radar, but the nose piece fits so badly that it almost has to be glued on and hide the radar. ARGG! I still like the bang for the buck, and I must commend Revell parts and service for flawless response for parts over 60 years of my building revel kits. Bravo for that.
Olive Drab Widow
I built this model several months ago and the enjoyment was great as I had built previous kits and lost them over time. I still believe that the details on this model far outreach some of todays by earlier standards of detailing. The cockpit and crew compartments are really well done for the time of Monogram way back when the model was first released. I built the kit straight from the box with no problems except that the wings needed support while being attached to the fuselage and that was a minor problem. All the other parts fit accordingly for such older molds. I again painted the model using all acrylic paints and used the Olive Drab theme as many reference photos showed the aircraft painted in that tone. Additionally I found that there was a version that actually carried a bomb on either wing and I copied what I thought was a close representation of that modification. Although an older model and re-released over time I found it to be a fun challenge.
Black, black, black
Ok, nice plane, but not so great of a kit. First off, it's black, all black. Very hard to see details. Not sure why they molded this in black plastic, it's easy to paint it black after the build. It was very difficult for me to see the details until after I primed it with medium gray primer. A lot of small parts that really could have been built into the larger part. I don't design these kits, just try my best to put them together. If you're looking for a challenge, this could be the kit for you. It looks good once it's finished but getting there is tough part. I gave it 2 stars based on the plastic being black, I think you get the idea about it being black. If they had used dark gray I think I would have given it a 4 star rating. I would recommend the kit, but know what you're in for on the build.
Black, Black Widow
This sits in the middle of my collection for a reason, it was enormously enjoyable to build and looks fantastic. It has a plethora of detail over the entire model, everything was relatively easy to install, only frustrating things were the back windows, they took some work to get in place without covering them in glue. The decals for the red stripes made no logical sense unless you cut them to length, so I skipped them and painted the red stripes on instead. Like I said, I loved building this, it was fun from the first to the last, lots of detail to keep you interested through what turned out to be a lengthy build, I would definately recommend this set.
P-61 Black Widow.
I love this model,to me the black widow is second only to the German night fighters in appeal. I d id not experience the flash problems others have had,but my kit was an earlier production run,I have not opened my new one as just received it and have other projects on the bench.I did experience some minor fit problems but nothing major.Detailing I would say is excellent.Decals are good.This was a challenging and fun model to build and is an excellent canadiate for dioramas.And the really nice thing about this kit is the price.I plan on using some aftermarket accessories on my next one.All in all an excellent model,I would highly recommend it.
A Key Player on All Fronts in WWII, and Eminently Buildable
Some people are reporting problems building this model. I've done it four times, and either they know something I don't or I know something they don't. It's a fun build with some impressive details in it, especially for when it came out. And it yields an impressive finished model for an entirely normal level of effort. There's plenty of room for nose weight (hint: consider leaving out the radar dish...). If you think your collection needs a P-61--and it certainly does--take the bad reviews with a grain of salt and approach the project with good cheer.
OUTSTANDING RARE MODEL AIRCRAFT USA HEAVY NIGHT FIGHTER!
This was my first WWII Twin engine aircraft. I tried my best to do it, it was not that hard. Take your time with the large interior and the guns, turrets , landing gear, step ladder (s) and canopy glass. My mistake was I left body in black and did not paint it. I recommend black spray paint/ or airbrush you can even buy on this site. Need also zinc chromate green/mustard yellow is ok for interior. Also, the small red decal lines on body take your A huge and nicely detailed model by standards you cannot go wrong with Revell-Monogram for quality and price
P-61 Black Widow
Very simple: Yes-this is the most affordable P-61 in this scale, No-it isn't worth the money. The kit is Revell at its worst, the engines don't match, wings and fuselage do not fit together the amount of putty and time it takes to build this is not worth the end product. You can buy for instance, other manufacture's kits for under $20 and the quality is 10 times as good. Cost can no longer be an excuse for this poor of a kit. I have been building Revell aircraft you years, I normally tolerate the 70's mold's flaws, but not this time.
Not bad
By: qxsp70
I built this kit with my brother as a kid and I thought I would give it a try as an adult for a trip down memory lane. While not a bad kit for a kid to through together and then use more as a toy, as an adult I had a few issues. I had a few minor fit issues and one wing was a little warped. However with some time I was able to make it into a model that was good enough for my amateur mind to find acceptable. Great value for the price
Great value P-61
Despite being ancient (30+ years IIRC), Monogram's P-61 has long been the go to kit, and still holds up well when compared to new Chinese kits as a good bang for the buck value. It doesn't have the fantastic detail of the newer kits, but it doesn't cost $100 either... What you get for twenty bucks is a very well detailed, feature filled accurate representation of the historic first purpose built American night fighter.
world war 2 era model.
the model is a bit tedious to assemble just pay close attention to instruction sheet. Do not separate parts from sprue tree so you don't get confused assembling. That is why I gave it a four star because of the age of the plane and I am not sure if it is a re-box (1999). But if you show patience it will turn out to be an attractive model. I did mine in a camouflage scheme and with low visibility paint scheme.
P-61 Fun
This is one fun build. The parts fit pretty good, nothing a little work can't fix, and the detail is more than satisfactory. The size is impressive so make sure you got the space to display it.! The canopy is a challenge to mask and paint but that is what the hobby is all about. A crew is included which is a nice touch. I really liked this kit and believe that any problems can be overcome with a little patience.
I have tried 3 and finished 1
I have been gifted this kit 3 times in the past. after the 1st 2 I wondering if people hated me. the first 2 attempts nothing fit right. form warped parts to wings and fuselage halves longer that the others. the 3rd time my kids gave it to me and I had to build it. the 3rd kit turned out great. everything fit, no putty and it looks fantastic. buy it at your own risk. you may get lucky.
Do Not build this model
Was getting toward the end when I finally threw my hands up and put the entire kit back in the box. So many poor areas to put together such as the engines. They were the poorest design I have come across. Thought Revell was better than this. P.S. Tail heavy to say the least without putting a post in the back to hold it up. No room for a lead weight in the nose.
1974 quality
I found this kit to be lackluster. This is the kind of kit that turns off future modelers, rather than drawing them in. This kit was released when I started doing models (1974) and reflects a lack of progress. Skip this model kit as it is more like dealing with an ex-wife rather than a new girl friend.
great kit but has problems.
P-61 Black Widow was a great plane but the kit has some problems. like some of the glass doesn't want to fit. also if you like me I like to hang my models on our ceiling (its 10 tall) and so for realism I put my landing gears in (or try) : ) but I had to cut and use lots of putty to get them to go in : (
poor fit on main canopy
Poor fit on main canopy and poor instructions - Revell should do a better job on writing the assembly instructions or have a technical writer do their work for them. Assembly should be written in stages with better pics of the parts after put in place - I would recommend only for experience builders
Black beauty
Lots of flash and ill-fitting parts. Required alot of patience and time to build and paint and correct. However, I'll still give it a good rating as there aren't many P-61 models out there and this one when finished with lots of TLC looks great on the shelf.
Buy lots of putty because nothing fits properly
One of the worst models I have ever put together. Revell just keeps getting worse with every model. Save your money, this is time wasting garbage. I have 5 ( Gifts )of there crap models under my bench because I dont have 40 hours to spend correcting defects.
Not for the beginner, very old molds.
It took a lot of work to get this kit together, and looking presentable. It does have a ton of detail for an older kit, I was surprised with that. But it needs a ton of work. Lots of putty, sand, prime, repeat. The mold is super old.
good i enjoyed it
good kit with some problems, getting the left side cannon right was difficult, could be me the figures are accurate. there are enough removable panels to build a nice diorama. mine is currently flying in a bush in the front yard.
Phib
By: BIVLOA
Absolutely the worst model I have ever built and I've been building for many years. NOTHING FIT RIGHT. VERY POOR DIRECTIONS. Always respected the Revell name but this must have been a reject kit.
Unique subject
This is a decent kit of a unique subject. This is an older kit some there are some fit issues, but overall, a good value, and great kit for a beginner to intermediate modeler.
hard to fit parts together
bought this kit with high hopes but was very disappointed with it. parts are extremely hard to fit together. not all parts line up correctly. not a good kit in my opinion
Front wheel base wrong
The instructions tell you to install the front wheel base after you glue the two halves together. Wrong! Install front wheel base before gluing halves together.
P-61 Black Widow
I was really disappointed with this kit. The piece fit was not satisfactory. The engine cowlings do not match, Canopy parts were difficult to put together.
P-61 1/48 Whatasnap
Great model kit. When together in a snap. Great detail and panel lines. Needed some seam work on booms and fuselage but that one reason I enjoy scale models.
great kit
By: glh664
i have this kit and im still working on it. ill post photos when I'm done. scheme fopr my build will be the Thunderstruck, 1947 weather aircraft.
Great plane
An enjoyable build that looks great when completed. I especially love the interior detail.