Mini-Reviews of 1:72 Scale Models
These are reviews of available kits. I've tried to review only the best (most accurate/most commonly available) kits for each aircraft type. Photos of my models are included where appropriate. These photos are located on the photo page of the IPMS Buzz Beurling modelling club. Except where noted, the following are in-box reviews.
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Heller's Ju-52 is apparently the best on the market, despite its age. The kit includes optional engine cowls with different exhaust arrangements to model the AAC.1, as well as a plug for the dorsal machine gun location, and a different type of rear cabin window.
The interior is fairly well detailed. I simply added belts to the seats. The main cabin features stringer and longeron detail molded into the sides below the windows, and all the bulkheads feature good corrugation detail. This creates a problem in that the forward cabin bulkhead (the cockpit rear wall) has two large ejector pin marks interrupting the corrugation detail. The bulkhead can't simply be reversed, as there as radio detail on the other side, and the dorway framing will interfere with the fit. Since the bulkhead is quite visible through the windshield, and I didn't want to lose the corrugations, I tried a quick fix. I took a small piece of aluminum foil slightly larger than the ejector pin mark, embossed it with the corrugation texture over a different section of the bulkhead, and used CA to glue it in place over the pin mark. When doing this, be careful not to crush the fragile texture of the foil. The resulting detail was a bit less well-defined than the surrounding area, but looked much better than an ejector pin mark. This bulkhead proved troublesome later, when it interfered with the fit of the port fuselage side. The trick was to file out a small notch halfway up the wall, and a second notch at the base, to clear the molded-in details on the fuselage sides. Once this is done, the fuselage goes together quite well, with the bulkheads providing good stiffness. Consider leaving the bottom panel off until after the wingls have been glued to their roots on the fuselage. By doing this, you can eliminate gaps in the most visible areas.
The kit engines are well detailed. They are molded in four parts, consisting of a cylinder bank, exhaust collector ring, pushrods and nose casing, and a heat diffuser plate (?) that mounts infront of the cylinders. The pushrods fit pretty well, although the part is very fragile. I used thick CA to fair the rod ends into the rocker covers on the cylinders. The trickiest part is joining the exhausts to the cylinders. Each engine has a different arrangement, so be careful. The instructions only show one of the outboard engines, and the drawing is not very clear on how the whole thing fits together. The centre engine also presents difficulties. Each cylinder has two small flat areas molded into the rear corners (at the back of the rocker covers). By studying the parts, it would seem that the exhaust stubs on the collector ring should be glued to the larger flat area, which works for the outboard engines. Based on the drawing, however, the arrangement for the centre engine would seem to be the opposite. Neither location seems to give the correct position for the centre engine exhausts, which I believe should be at the same height on either side of the fuselage. Further problems arise in attaching the cowls to the engines. The outboard engines have small stubs molded to three of their cylinders, which mate to depressions on the inside of the cowl halves, in a very flimsy arrangement. The centre engine seems to merely float inside its cowl, with no visible means of securing it!
Once the fuselage is together, the rest of assembly goes quite well. Minimal gaps are evident at the wing roots, though a large gap resulted at the joint of the underside of the nose to the centre wing panel. Be careful filling here, as the nose lacks strength in this region, and it's easy to pop the seam. I attached the flaps, ailerons and elevators prior to painting, which resulted in me knocking them off several times! I would recommend leaving the elevators off until the tricolor is painted on the tail. I painted the tail and anti-glare panel prior to painting the base colour to avoid the need to mask over the metallic finish. I expected problems with masking on the corrugated surface of the rudder, but I used Tamiya 6 mm masking tape and had no problems. For the finish I used regular Humbrol aluminum (should that be aluminium?), not the Metalcote version. All photos I've seen show well-weathered, non-polished finishes. To break up the monotony of the finish and accentuate the texture, I used a wash of Tamiya German grey thinned with rubbing alcohol. By varying the intensity of the wash across the wings a more interesting, irregular, finish is created.
Decals are provided for two Luftwaffe Ju-52s and one AAC.1 operated in Indochina. I have an old issue of the kit, and the decals have yellowed considerably, so that I doubt they can be salvaged. Decals Carpena's Indochina 1er Partie set features an AAC.1 of GT. 1/64 Bearn at Bach Mai in 1950. In any case, care must be taken to ensure the decals settle into the surface detail. I had a hell of a time getting the Carpena decals on. All the tail markings disintegrated on me, and resisted all attempts to put them back together. The other markings seems to react poorly to Microsol and failed to adhere. I ended up using thinned Krystal Klear to stick the decals on. In fairness, I didn't gloss the model, partly out of haste, and partly out of a conviction that the microscopic smoothing provided by a gloss finish would likely not overcome the macroscopic roughness of the corrugation on the kit. After touch up of the most destroyed markings, it was on with the engines and cowls, which worked half decently when I glued small shims to the ends of three cylinders spaced at 120 degree intervals on each engine. If done right, this provides a push fit for each cowl, which allows some adjustment to get the alignment perfect. For photos of the completed model, click here and here.
Airfix's B-26 is a kit that hasn't aged well. It suffers from heavy rivet detail, thick trailing edges, overdone separate control surfaces, a general lack of detail in the cockpit and other areas, and I've heard rumours that the rear fuselage is quite badly off (I haven't checked that myself). Having said that, it's the only game in town. In its favour, the kit provides options to build either the eight-gun nosed -26B or the glass nosed -26C. Both the upper and lower turrets are provided with plugs to cover up the holes if the turrets aren't installed, and underwing gun pods are included. This allows pretty much any combination of armament to be modelled, though you'll have to check your references as the armament fit varied from plane to plane (For an attempt to systematically categorise the armament see the AAHS article listed in the references section). The gun nose lacks detail, and the glass nose lacks an interior and suffers from poorly moulded plastic parts (some of the older issues of the kit suffer from short-shots). The rear gunner's compartment is also quite empty.
Carpena includes markings for 2 Invaders on their Indochine 1er Partie set, a natural metal B-26B from GB 1/19 Gascogne and a black RB-26C of ERP 2/19 Armagnac. Model Art Decal Systems cover a couple of Indochina-based Invaders on sheet 72-018, another RB-26C of ERP 2/19 and a B-26C of GB 1/91 Bourgogne.
Overall, this kit is certainly not up to current standards, and it will require a lot of work to be brought up to an acceptable detail level. For this you'll need references aplenty. I understand the book Foreign Invaders has a chapter or two on the French aircraft, but the price of this book has always put me off. Squadron-Signal's A-26 Invader In Action is a typical piece of work, with only passing mention of French use of the type. Several years ago I took 40-odd photos of a restored B-26 in French markings at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum near Hamilton, Ontario. These are mainly detail shots of the landing gear, though, and any restored aircraft must be considered a somewhat dubious source of information. Given all this, I still plan to build a few Invaders, because who can resist that sexy shape!
Update- 27 July 2000Scott Van Aken, who runs the Modeling Madness Webzine provided a photo of the Airfix kit with Carpena markings. Click here to see Scott's fine work.
Italeri's C-119 typifies much of what is good and bad about Italeri. Good, in the form of the subject matter, and some of the details. Bad, in the form of the fit and the heavy raised panel detail. Fit is complex on any twin-boomed aircraft, and this is no exception, with the boom to wing fit being particularly messy. In cleaning this up, you'll inevitably lose most of the panel detail in this area, and hence some rescribing will probably be in order. Offsetting these problems are well-detailed engines, props, gear and cockpit, though the cargo section is a little sparse. All fuselage doors are molded separate, and the split tail can be displayed open. Decals are available from both Microscale and Carpena for this one, both for a nose art bedecked C-119, temporarily detached from the USAF 63rd TCS/403rd TCG.
Update (Mar 17, 1998): Nowfel Leulliot informs me that the Italeri kit (at least according to the Carpena instructions) is actually a G model, whereas the C was the model employed by the French (My comments above are based on the AC-119K gunship kit). To backdate the kit, the lower tail fins must be removed, and the nose gear modified to a single wheel type.
If you're looking for a subject that will stand out in a crowd, you can't do much better than an ex-Japanese Jake in French markings! Hasegawa's kit is one of their older kits, but don't let that put you off. The kit features fine raised panel lines, a well detailed two row engine with multipart cowl and choice of cowl flaps, plus a choice of three variants- the early, wire braced float E13A1, the strut braced float E13A1a, and the radar-equipped E13A1b (I'm sure I've got these wrong, and some IJN expert will flame me horribly!). As far as I know, the French had the E13A1a variant. On the negative side, the kit cockpit lacks detail, and my canopy splayed at the sprue attachment point.
Strangely enough, there are decals available for this obscure aircraft. Decals Carpena's Indochina 2em Partie includes the required (and rather basic) markings. Note that the Jakes had the early style of cocarde, without the yellow surround. Colours were as per IJN use, though heavily weathered, and likely touched up. Carpena's instructions suggest that the aircraft number should be placed on a medium grey rectangle, across the spot where the fuselage hinomaru originally lay. I haven't seen any photographs of this plane, so I can't say for sure that the decals are incorrect, but allow me to advance my theory. The French would have to have removed the Japanese markings, i.e. the Hinomarus on the fuselage and wings and any other markings. It's likely that they would have painted over the markings with green, to match the topside colour. I doubt that they'd have an exact match, especially given the age and condition of the aircraft when they were obtained. Thus, it's likely they'd have painted over the markings with whatever shade of reasonably dark green they had at hand, possibly even the dark green/olive drab shade used on the MS.501s. Hence, I find it very likely that the patch of colour on the fuselage is actually a different shade of green, which, depending on its reflective properties, could easily appear grey against the darker IJN green in a black and white photograph. This is all conjecture, however, but I don't think I'll ever meet anyone who ever saw the actual plane, and who can tell me I'm wrong.
Update (Mar 17, 1998): (Another note from Nowfel Leulliot) Though at least one photo shows a IJN green machine, apparently photos of 8.S.1 in l'Aviation Francaise Vol.2 clearly show an overall light grey (or aluminum) plane. So it is possible that the fuselage panels were grey. Still, colour photos are unlikely to show up, and hence some modelling judgement is required here.
Update (Feb 5, 1999): Well, this one's almost finished! The kit goes together with no major problems, though maintaining the correct alignment of the floats and struts relative to the fuselage can prove quite a handful. I got a little sloppy with mine, and the result is an a/c that looks like its just gone through a rather heavy landing (or more of a one-time overstress!). In the end I went for a medium grey panel under the code numbers. For the basic colours, I went for the new Model Master IJN colours (which turned out to be glossy, much to my chagrin). I dulled them with a healthy dollop of flat white. For an interesting touch, I sprayed the wing hinomaru locations with the unlightened raw colours, though this only really showed up on the topside. I still had problems with the Carpena decals for this one. I coated each decal with Microscale Instant Decal Film, which prevented the decals from disintegrating, and I had to use Future to get the decals to stay in place. For photos of the completed model, click here and here.
Italeri's F4U-7 is the only late model kit in this scale currently available, and it's also quite a nice kit. It features somewhat heavy recessed panel lines, a moderately detailed cockpit which looks good with the addition of some seatbelts, wheel well detail (a bit shallow though), and a full load of fuel tanks and rockets. The kit goes together quite well, with some filling and filing needed at the joint between the front edge of the bottom centre section of the wing and the rear of the cowl. The biggest problem I encountered was the terribly undersized R-2800 engine (moulded as a single piece). Although the part has nice detail, it's small enough the fit through the front opening of the cowl, and just doesn't cut it when it comes to simulating the massive, fire-breathing R-2800. I replaced it with a white metal offering from Aeroclub. I only used the front row of cylinders, as I figured the back row wouldn't show. The kit prop also looks a little underfed to me, but I had nothing reliable to check it against. When this kit first came out, a lot was made of the fact that the forward fuselage was 1/8 inch too short (see May 1995 FineScale Modeler, p10), though I later read that other's measured the kit and found it to scale out quite well. In comparing with photos I can't spot any shortcomings (excuse the pun). The only other problem in assembly came when it was time to install the rockets- the fins are too large and the rockets interfere with one another. To remedy this I filed down the fins to the thicker section. This results in better fitting rockets, but the fins are now massively out of scale in terms of thickness. I also substituted a pair of 500 lb bombs from an Italeri B-57 for the drop tanks provided in the kit, with some scratchbuilt anti-sway braces.
The kit includes markings for a USMC bird and a Suez striped Aeronavale a/c. The decals are translucent, and darken over the dark blue base. I modified the kit decals and added a handpainted squadron insignia (a tiny pirate skull with a scarf) based loosely on a colour profile in an old Tamiya Model Magazine. I later found a photo showing that the aircraft whose serial number I depicted (using the kit decal) actually had a different side number. Oh well, you can't get them all right. Though the French received these aircraft new from the production line, photos of them in action show heavy weathering. I dulled the gloss of the dark sea blue finish with Humbrol Satin Coat, and added lots of chipped metal and exhaust staining. As a final touch I added some thinned blade antennae and a couple whip aerials to the underside.
A photo of my completed Corsair is displayed on the IPMS Buzz Beurling photo page.
Update (Mar 17, 1998): I have been recently informed (by Cyril Defever and Nowfel Leulliot) that the F4U-7 was not actually deployed to Indochina until after the end of hostilities. Flotille 14F, the squadron whose aircraft my model depicts, actually deployed without their F4U-7s, and had their aircraft replaced with AU-1s from the USS Saipan. The F4U-7 didn't arrive until April 1955, when Flotille 12F arrived, flying cease-fire monitoring missions. So it appears that my model actually does not depict an actual aircraft!
Minicraft/Academy F6F-5 Hellcat
Minicraft/Academy's (hereafter referred to as Minicraft in the interest of brevity) Hellcat is a very nice little piece of modern high quality tooling. The panel lines are crisp and recessed, the canopy is crystal clear, and the cockpit looks good with only a set of belts added, though the instrument panel is represented by a decal only. The kit even includes clear parts for the lights along the spine. The main flaw that I could spot is the overly blunt leading and trailing edges on all the tail surfaces. As well, the kit representation of the wing guns look more like 30 mm cannon than 50 cal machine guns. Incidentally, the kit comes with the armament of six wing guns, but could easily be modified to a four cannon a/c. Some bulbous rockets are provided, but I used chunks of plastic to represent the mounting points instead. A centreline fuel tank is included, along with 500 lb bombs, neither of which I chose to use. The straps for the fuel tank appear overscale. I added anti-sway braces to the bomb pylons. Fit was excellent, with minimal filling required.
Decals for a Hellcat are available on Carpena's Indochina 1er Partie sheet (from Flotille 11F) and Model Art sheet 72/026 (Flotilles 1F & 12F), but I modelled a minimally marked aircraft using decals from the spares box. The aircraft is one depicted in Squadron-Signal's VNAF book. The Heller cocardes I used were too thick to conform to the recessed detail. I tried something a little different for the finish- after an overall coat of gloss sea blue, I mixed in a little white and with my airbrush at its minimum setting I sprayed the centres of all the panels and the fuselage sections. The result looked pretty good, and it also deadened the gloss realistically.
A photo of my completed Hellcat is displayed on the IPMS Buzz Beurling photo page.
Monogram's F8F is a relic of days long gone, but it's still a pretty decent representation. Panel detail is raised but clean and pretty accurate. The kit is very simple, but still includes some cockpit and undercarriage detail. Armament consists of bombs and rockets, with a centreline fuel tank (suitable for modification as a recce pod for a F8F-1P field mod). The latest release includes markings for French and Thai aircraft. The printing isn't particularly clear, so aftermarket is probably the way to go here. Superscale has one set of French Bearcat markings available, and I'm reasonably sure it's for a Indochina-based bird. Carpena covers 2 Bearcats on the Indochine 1er Partie sheet, a F8F-1B from GC 1/21 Artois and a F8F-1 of GC II/21 Auvergne.
It was brought to my attention by Cyril Defever that the Monogram kit actually depicts the tall-tailed F8F-2 variant, which was not used by the French. Backdating the kit will require reworking the tail fin and rudder, which shouldn't be too difficult. I expect the drawings in Squadron/Signal's F8F Bearcat in Action would come in useful here.
Sword's new Bearcat is in many ways an improvement over the classic Monogram kit, which wasn't all that bad itself. The main parts are injection molded in grey styrene with finely recessed detail. Two complete sets of fuselage halves are included, allowing the builder to model either a short tailed F8F-1 or a tall tailed -2. An insert panel for the bottom of the cowl is included for the -2. Wings have the cannon bulges (as on the -1B and -2) molded in, and an addendum instruction sheet indicates that these should be removed for machinegun-armed (-1) variant. The small injection parts are a bit crude, particularly the main and tail gears, which lack detail, and the cannon, which are just simple rods. The highlights of the kits are the resin parts. These include the engine, cockpit, main gear well, rockets and mainwheels. The cockpit tub is molded in one piece with the seat, stick, and side consoles molded in. A separate instrument panel is provided, but this lacks detail, with just crude holes for instruments. The engine looks ok, and the rockets are nicely molded. The best part is the wheel well insert, which includes the oil cooler ducting that is very prominent in the wells of the real thing. Hopefully these will fit within the wing without too much of a hassle. Finally, an injection molded canopy is included. In my kit, the molding looked a bit flawed, so a vacuform replacement may be in order.
Decals are provided for two USN (F8F-1 of VF-3 and F8F-2 of VF-151) and one French machine. The French a/c being aircraft "F", a F8F-1B of GC 1/22 Santonge. The decals (by MPD) are nicely printed and appear very thin. Alternative markings are available from both Carpena (72.04 gives a/c "G" a F8F-1B of 1/21 Artois and "P" a F8F-1 of GC II/21 Auvergne) and Superscale. Model Art has a Bearcat sheet in the works.
Airfix H-19 (Westland Whirlwind)
Recently reissued, Airfix's Whirlwind has been around for longer than I have. For a kit of its vintage, the parts look pretty good. The fuselage halves feature relatively restrained rivet detail, with adequate definition to the air intake screening on the sides. The screening across the nose is less well-defined. The cargo door is molded shut, as are the pilots' doors/windows (the framing of which is totally missing). The rotor head and undercarriage detail is minimal, and the rotor blades are thick and lack an airfoil shape. Interior detail is basic, with a floor, two seats, two collectives (but no cyclics), an instrument panel coaming (with no panel), and a representation of the transmission housing behind the seats. There is no cargo bay detail. The transmission housing parts feature a grid texture, which is supposed to simulate quilted insulation. Transparencies are typical Airfix, thick and highly distorted. The windshield framing is particularly suspect. Decals in the latest release cover a USMC HRS-1 and a FAA Whirlwind HAS22. French markings will have to come from spares for this one.
Typical of Hasegawa kits of the early '80s, with nice moulding, fine raised panel lines, and a basic interior. The engine looks fair, and the landing gear is simple. My kit is a recent reboxing (at a majorly increased price), and includes two styles of headrests and exhausts. Two sets of Japanese markings are included, which will be replaced with Carpena's decals from Indochina 1er Partie. Should look really good in mottled green and French cocardes!
Airfix's L-19/O-1 is an oldie but not a bad little kit. It's very simple in construction, with the biggest problem to watch out for being the upper cabin windows in the wing. There are six windows, two large kidney-shaped ones and four narrow rounded-edged rectangular ones. These are all provided in the kit as very thick, incredibly distorted parts. All had molding flaws inside the part (likely due to the thickness), making them completely unusable. The first time I built this kit I tried using Krystal Klear to replace the windows. This was a pretty iffy proposition, given the size of the large windows. The result was an improvement over the kit parts, however the large windows sagged in their centres, and remained soft after setting. For my next kit, I'm thinking of cutting out the section of the wing which contains the windows and replacing it with clear sheet. Given the relatively simply curvature of the wing at this point, I don't expect this to be too difficult. After this, I'll simply mask the windows onto the new centre section. Of course this will increase visibility into the minimally furnished cabin, although there's not much there in the real plane. One simply change that will improve the appearance will be to polish the molded-in braces out of the windscreen and replace these with stretched sprue.
The other problem with the kit is ejector pin marks on the horizontal stabiliser. These are right in the middle of the rib detail on the elevators, and hence can't be removed without losing all the detail. On my first kit I simply sanded all the ribs off, but next time I think I'll try carefully rebuilding the ribs with sprue.
I believe the French L-19s had an unfaired ADF loop on the fuselage spine, so the kit fairing will have to be discarded, and a loop added from the spares box or made from scratch. Kit markings are for a pair of Vietnam war a/c (a FAC grey USAF machine "Ronnie's Racer", and a VNAF bird with a checkerboard fuselage stripe), so you'll have to scrounge for markings.
Azur is a new manufacturer of limited run, injection-moulded kits. The tooling and moulding are done in the Czech republic, based on design and research done in France. The main parts of the kit are produced by low pressure injection moulding, giving parts with lightly recessed surface detail, some minor flash, and a fine, pebbly texture on most surfaces. There are no alignment pins for any of the parts, and large ejector pin stubs are found on the insides of many parts. A small photoetched fret (by Eduard)provides instrument panels with relief bezel detail, seat belts, rudder pedals, flap hinges, and external control linkages for the rudder and elevator. Film instruments are also included. Some small parts must be added by the builder, including the bracing wires.
For the most part assembly looks straightforward. The wing is moulded in an upper and lower half, eliminating the need to carefully align each wing, with no mounting aids. The outrigger floats and the engine nacelle will require a great deal of care to ensure proper alignment, though the instructions provide some small 4-view diagrams that should come in handy. The instructions are well printed, but installation of some of the bracing wires is unclear. Another area that will require some further study is the fuselage to wing pylon. The fuselage pylon has scribed outlines of windows (or portholes), two of which are shown as windows on the box art. No clear parts are provided, and there are more scribed outlines than there are windows on the box art. There are no detail painting istructions for the interior parts, or prop.
Cleanly printed Propagteam decals are provided for three aircraft; a/c no. 56, HS4, aboard the cruiser Gloire in 1939; Vichy Air Force no. 53, HS3, aboard the cruiser la Marseillase; and a Luftwaffe machine in 1941. Both French aircraft wear aluminum over black schemes, with yellow and red ID stripes on the tail of the Vichy machine. Model Art sheet 72/030 covers the Loire 130.
My references on the Loire 130 are virtually nil, with only two photos. I have nothing on either of the machines operated by Flotille 8S, until their replacement with Sea Otters. I assume they would still be in prewar colours, as depicted in the kit, but aside from that, some further research is necessary.
One of the nicer kits in Airfix's stable, this kit will soon be overtaken as the best fighter-bomber Mossie by the forthcoming Hasegawa (and likely Tamiya?) kits. Raised panel details are restrained (the beauty of a wooden airplane). The canopy is a little thick, and the interior is a couple of boxs and some undersized looking seats. Lots of optional parts, including narrow and paddle-bladed props and shielded and exposed exhausts. My refs show the exposed five stack exhausts on the French FB.VIs. Apparently there are problems with the scribing of the inboard flaps and the stance of the finished product on its gear, though I don't think either detracts overly from the appearence of the finished product. Carpena provides markings for a sharkmouthed example of GC Corse on their Indochina 1er Partie sheet, though given my problems with the application of Carpena's markings, I suspect that the sharkmouth may prove a lot of trouble.
For such a small, seemingly simple aircraft, this kit is surprisingly difficult to build. Having built the kit as a Storch back in my adolescent years, I had some inkling of just how bad this kit can turn out without a lot of care in assembly. The real problem is the fuselage to canopy to wing area- for this kit the canopy is a major structural component.
To warm up for assembly I filed off all the overdone fabric texture from the wings, fuselage and empennage, being careful to leave the scalloping in place. I removed the flaps and all control surfaces, just to add a little character. I filed the trailing edge of the rudder down quite a bit. Interestingly, I had a chance to examine an actual rudder on an aircraft under restoration at the Royal Army Museum in Brussels, and the trailing edge is actually about half an inch thick, i.e. it does not come to a sharp edge. This is due to the strip of wood that runs around the rudder, giving it its shape. The cowling benefits from drilling out the main intake and adding a little engine detail inside (very little of which can be seen). I also bored the two small cheek intakes that Heller provides as raised details.
When it came time to build up the canopy, I worked slowly, leaving the door until last. This proved to be a good idea, because with all the other windows in place and aligned, the door wouldn't fit. I ended up fitting it in an open position (and it looks like I planned it that way!). Aligning all those struts is not an easy task, and it's made more difficult by the poor attachment points in the kit. Incidentally, most of the struts are overscale, and some are downright inaccurate, but there's no easy fix for this. When I reattached the flaps and control surfaces I realised that I had no clear idea of how the flaps should look when dropped, so I fudged it. It's pretty hard to spot the problem in this scale. At this stage, the kit looks real fragile, and it is. Mine's been dropped at least once (by a club member who shall remain nameless), cracking the wing root seam and separating all the struts on one side at their fuselage attachment ends. The accident wasn't all bad though, since in refilling the wing root seam I did a better job of hiding it than the first time around.
For the MS.500 I used the kit-supplied horizontal stabs, tailwheel and upper transparency without the gun position. I've noted that the gun position was in fact present on some aircraft, though I've never seen the gun installed. My references on the paint scheme were vague at the time, so I selected a nice dark green (FS34092) that I'd bought by mistake for another project. I drybrushed with a mix of this shade and white to highlight the rib detail and simulate a weathered finish. For markings, I modelled an aircraft depicted in a photo in Rene Francillion's Vietnam: the War in the Air. Most MS.500's were very plain in finish. I used the kit cocardes and cross of Lorraine for the tail, with the aircraft letter P coming from spares. For the tricolor on the tail I used white and red straight from the bottle, with the blue mixed from insignia blue and white to match the cocardes.
Subsequently I found a couple of references that cite FS34087 Olive Drab as the correct color (Robert Mikesh's Flying Dragons and the instruction sheet for Decals Carpena Indochina Part 2 set). The color profile of a South Vietnamese MS.500 in Squadron's VNAF book suggests a light blue undersurface colour, but I can find no evidence for this, and a photo of an ex-French Criquet in the Laotian AF clearly shows the same dark shade the wings. Overall, the kit looks good, but the details could certainly be more petite. I had hoped for an improvement with Eduard's new cutaway Storch kit, but this is merely the same kit with the internal framework added to the wings and aft fuselage. Perhaps someday I'll try it again, especially if I can find some references for the Salmson radial engined MS.502.
A photo of my completed Criquet is displayed on the IPMS Buzz Beurling photo page.
Update (Feb 27, 1998): I have been informed by Cyril Defever that Heller's kit does not actually represent an MS.500 at all. MS.500s were produced post-war, and featured aluminum skinned wings, unlike the fabric skinned wings of the Fi-156 (and Heller's kit). Attempting to fill and sand away all the rib detail on the kit would be one solution to this problem, but a rather labour intensive one. Still, it's something to keep in mind for those looking for better accuracy.
Heller Nord 1001/1002 Pingouin
Interestingly, this kit is marketed by Heller strictly as a Messerschmitt Bf-108 Taifun, with no option to build a French version. As I understand it, the main difference between the 108 and the 1001/1002 is in the engines, with the 108 (and the 1000) using the German Argus engine, while the 1001/1002 used alternate French (Renault) engines. To convert from one to the other requires the addition of a scoop to the engine. Other than that, this kit is pretty typical Heller. The parts are cleanly moulded, with minimal fine raised panel detail. The control surfaces and flaps feature the standard overdone fabric simulation. The cockpit is simple (like the original!), and includes front seats, the rear bench seat, an instrument panel (which doesn't quite match the Bf-108 panel in photos I've seen), and two crude sticks. The main gear struts are featureless, as are the main wheels. Once again, the original parts were quite simple. Heller managed to inprove their molding over the Storch/MS.500 by moulding the small check intake slots open this time, instead of representing them with raised areas. As to markings and schemes for Indochina-based Pingouins, I'm at a loss. My collection doesn't include a single photo of an operational aircraft. Those of you lucky enough to have a copy of L'Aviation Militaire Francaise en Indochine 1946-1954 might be able to shed some light on this issue.
Only Heller would ever release a kit of a Noratlas. Despite the planes wide use in NATO and other airforces it remains largely unknown in North America. Heller's kit would look great next to a C-119. This is a pretty typical Heller release, with fairly heavy raised detail, but good shape. The engines (Bristol Hercules if I remember correctly) are faceless, but little can be seen behind the big spinners. One tip to improve the interior would be to drill out the section below the instrument panel containing the foot pedals, as this area is visible through the lower nose windows. Optional parts allow you to build early or late aircraft, with two styles of canopy and short and long fin fillets. The Noratlas appeared right at the tail end of the conflict, and the early variant is the appropriate one. Several sets of markings for French and foreign a/c are included (mine are badly yellowed, par for the course it seems), but none are appropriate. From what I can tell the aircraft used were in overall natural metal, without the white upper surface, but my references are pretty equivocal on this question.
Toko is a Ukranian manufacturer that's been making waves with their eclectic range of kits (WW I, Kingcobras and the modern Antonov An-24 transport). Their kits are well moulded, with a mix of finely engraved panel lines, some raised panels, and both raised and recessed rivets. Offsetting this, the fabric detail on the rudder and elevators is overstated, and the canopy framing is indistinct, though the canopy is quite clear. The kit provides a reasonable cockpit, with a detailed floor, seat, stick, rudder pedals, radio, and a clear instrument panel with raised faces. Both of the car doors are moulded clear, with internal detail (door handles, window cranks and a map pocket!) The gear is well detailed though the nose gear yoke looks overscale (the real thing is quite beefy, though). Toko offers a range of P-63s, and this kit includes parts for them all, including the ventral fin for the C model, two styles of air intakes for the spine with separate lips, plus a scoopless spine and armoured rear canopy panel for the flying target RP-63G. The builder is instructed to cut the cannon barrel/propeller shaft short for the C. Underwing tanks are provided, along with a large belly tank.
The only question mark I found with this kit has to do with the shape of the gear wells and doors. The one piece lower wing has wells shaped like the gear, with circular cutouts. The one piece door moulding, which must be cut into separate doors, features a squared-off shape that doesn't match the wells at all. A quick check of my references showed nothing conclusive to either prove or disprove this arrangement, but it certainly looks strange. Another minor error is that the gun muzzles that protrude from the upper cowl are moulded as a single raised section, instead of two separate bulges. This should be easy to fix with a quick bit of file work. Construction looks straightforward, with possible pitfalls being the fit of the multipart scoops on the spine and losing the fine detail during filling seams.
Decals are a dream, with well-printed markings for no less than four Indochina-based P-63s. The aircraft depicted are: 5L-M, 44-094, G.C.11/5 Ile de France; 44-086, G.C.11/6 Normandie-Niemen; 43-11622, G.C.1/9 Limousin; and 43-40037, G.C.11/9 Auvergne. Each includes well printed squadron crests. The blue in the cocardes and the tail bands (provided) looks a little dark, though not nearly as bad as the box art makes it look. My only concern with these decals is their relatively flat finish, which may make silvering a problem (if they're anything like Italeri's). Alternative markings are available on Carpena's Indochine 1er Partie sheet, for a P-63C of GC 2/5 Ile de France.
Matchbox's Privateer looks buildable in the box, but a closer inspection leaves one wishing that Minicraft would expand their Liberator series to include the PB4Y-2. The kit features minimal surface detail (no trenches thankfully), with a minimal interior to go along with it. The transparencies are thick, and the side blisters for the cockpit are moulded separately, leaving some nasty gluing if you're not careful. The kit includes numerous optional parts, and requires that all the windows be filed out (only recessed area are moulded into the fuselage halves. The sections with the waist blisters are inserts that may require some careful fitting to avoid nasty seams. Plugs are provided for the dorsal turrets, but my research indicates that the aircraft had the turrets in Indochina. Markings are included for USN and Aeronavale Privateers, with the French a/c being a North African-based example. It seems the latest issues have replaced the Matchbox decals with Revell style markings, which are poorly printed, but seem to have less washed-out colour.
Academy/Minicraft PBY-5A Catalina
Released several years ago as part of a series of PBYs, Academy's -5A is a quantum leap beyond the ancient Airfix kit. All panel and rivet detail is recessed, though the rivet detail looks excessive to me (sort of like an engraved version of Airfix detail). All control surfaces and the wing aft of the rear spar feature heavy fabric detail. My chief complaint with the moldings stems from the use of black plastic (the kit is marketed as a Black Cat PBY-5A), which certainly won't help with the mostly white scheme I have in mind. Several options are provided in the box, including the Yagi aerials and "eyeball" nose turret required for an Indochina-based PBY. A choice of exhaust types is also included. A basic interior is provided, with seats, yokes and a featureless instrument panel (with decal) up front, and bulkheads and walkways for the waist gunners' area. The kit guns are accurate in shape, but lack detail. Engines are well-detailed, and molded as one piece. All tires are provided as separate PVC parts (with no plastic duplicates) with some tread detail. Minimal decals are provided for a black PBY. Appropriate markings are given on Carpena's Indochina 1er Partie, for a PBY-5A of Flotille 8F.
Best described as the lesser of three evils (the Aoshima kit being a toy, and the Matchbox kit not being the correct variant), this golden oldie is classic Airfix. Tons of raised rivets, nil in the cockpit, a canopy that always looked squashed to me, a massive spinner, etc, etc. The perforations in the dive flaps are indicated by raised circles, though I think someone covered this in photoetch some years back. This one will take some work to bring into shape, though I've always liked the look of the Beast, and all those quarter-scale Monogram beauties are pretty inspiring. Again, decals are available via Carpena's Indochina 1er Partie for a SB2C-5 of Flotille 9F.
Hasegawa's recent SBD-5 is a beautifully engineered kit. It fits like a dream, and has crisply recessed panel detail. On the down side (if there is one) the cockpit is pretty sparse, with decals for the instruments and very basic machine guns. I dressed mine up with belts for the pilot, and then brought out what detail was present with washes and dry-brushing. The other problem with the kit is the dive brakes. The kit dive brakes are moulded shut, with the perforations depicted as recessed circles in the parts. My first thought was to drill out the holes, but the wing flaps are moulded as one piece, and the holes aren't aligned from top to bottom. Without going to photoetched parts, it looks like the only thing to do is paint the holes red to depict the inside of the opposite surface. To do this neatly I sprayed the brakes with red, then applied Micro Mask to each hole with a small brush. After I painted the other colours I carefully chipped away at the mask with a toothpick, using water to soften the exposed mask. After all that the holes still came out irregular, and I had to touch up about half of them! The rest of the kit goes together quite well. Photos seem to indicate that the pneumatic tailwheel (the fat one) and the underwing Yagi aerials should be fitted. I tried to add the cross pieces to the Yagi aerials but it turned into a big mess and I gave up.
The SBD stands out from other ex-USN aircraft in that it wore the old three tone scheme (Hellcats, Bearcats, Helldivers and Privateers all wore overall midnight blue). A prominent feature of the aircraft was that the US star and bar was painted out using a darker colour, probably non-specular sea blue, leaving the outline of the marking visible. I carried this a little bit further by using lightened versions of the base colours (actually a slightly darkened white for the underside) and then spraying insignia shapes using the base colours straight from the bottle. I also highlighted panel lines on the upper surfaces using airbrushing, washing and drybrushing. Panels details on the underside (all those access covers) were highlighted using a 0.3 mm HB mechanical pencil, slightly smudged using an artist's rolled paper stick. Markings came from Carpena's Indochina 2em Partie sheet. The decals were slightly translucent, silvered somewhat, and broke up once on the model, but they don't look too bad in the end. The result certainly stands out, and I highly recommend this kit.
For photos of the completed model, click here and here.
Hasegawa's Spitfires has been reviewed extensively elsewhere, so I won't bother repeating what's been said before. The highlights of the kits are cleanly moulded engraved details, and a well-executed "gull-wing" section. Cockpit detail is minimal, though better than Fujimi's Griffon Spits. The Mk.IX includes both clipped (LF) and standard wingtips, rounded and pointed rudders, and two styles of chin intake. It also includes the retractable tailwheel parts for the Mk.VIII, along with the correct non-retractable Mk.IX style. To accomodate the two styles of wing tips, the aileron edges are moulded in both the short and long wing configurations- the modeller must fill in the appropriate line. All together, the kit seems to include all the basic bits for a nice Indochina-based Armee de l'Air Spitfire. Carpena's Indochine 1er Partie includes markings for 2 Spits (GC II/7 Nice and GC 1/4 Dauphine), shown with clipped wingtips, though I've seen photos showing long-winged a/c with both the pointed and rounded rudders.
Last updated 27 July 2000
