Head's up about the new Trumpeter 1/700 Hawkeye

For those of you looking to spiff up your carrier air wings, Trumpeter is coming out with all kinds of 1/700 planes. I went for the E-2C because the ones that came with the ancient Revell USS Enterprise are just Godawful. The ones in the Italeri Kitty Hawk are no better. While the Trumpeter offering just looks more like a Hawkeye (to me), there are a couple of issues I noticed before I even started:

• The sprue joints are BIG, and in spots that are going to be hard to hide, like the sides of the fuselage right under the cockpit, and the outside ends of the rudders.
• For some bizarre reason, they etched a 1/8-inch grid on the top of the radome. That is going to be a pain to fill and sand (these are the clear styrene version with all its attendant brittleness problems) because, naturally, I'm doing VAW-123 birds, the Screwtops, with that nifty design on the top.
• The tail is in two pieces, with only a very, very narrow slot on top of the fuselage for them to share. Think I'll be using the slow drying CA on these guys while I try to line them up!

On the other hand, except for those big sprue joints right under the cockpit, the S-3B Vikings look great. Each box comes with a modest assortment of national insignia and Navy/Marines decals in either low viz or standard colors.