above the door on the right hand
side, but there’s no mention of
“Alternative” at the winch fitting
stage, and all three paint schemes
show it present on the right side
view, but not in the upper views.
Stage 7 has the completed cabin
area fitted into the fuselage and
the two halves joined together. The
fit of the cabin was good, but the
fuselage join needed some filler
on more or less the whole length,
so that was put to one side to set
and on to Stage 8, the tailplanes.
Again the instructions are
not that helpful; in fact, they are
actively confusing. The kit provides
alternative small or large vertical
tails, with no indication of which
should be used for which scheme:
the rest of the instructions show
the large ones fitted; the colour
markings and decal placement
drawings show all three examples
with the same tails; and to add
insult to injury, the drawings don’t
really look like EITHER tail! Plus,
you need to really concentrate on
which holes to open up, because
the two sides are identical, and
as there is nothing to stop you
doing it wrong (give me nice,
keyed parts any day!), it would
be all too easy to end up with the
wrong orientation of the tabs at
the rear of the tail (they should
both stick out to the right).
Every picture I could find of US
Army, Air Force Rescue, and French
aircraft (including D/16 in Algeria
and at Toulouse) shows the smaller
tail fitted. Also, the smaller tail
has very prominent ribs running
across it, four sets of four on the
main tail plane and smaller ones
on the tab, mostly in line with
some of the longer ones. The kit
parts represent this feature very
well, but Italeri have moulded ten
ribs on the tab where there should
be eleven. They have missed out
one from the middle; some small
lengths of plastic strip were needed
to recreate this missing rib.Stage 9 fits the
tailplanes, the engine
access doors (with the
option of having them
open), and the main
(rear) undercarriage
and wheels. I fitted
the tailplanes together
and put them to one
side. There’s no need
to worry about colour
demarcation on any of
these schemes and they’ll
just get in the way at the
moment, so I moved on to
the engine access doors.
The k it latches/hinges/
lock detail was very heavy,
but fortunately Eduard
supply replacement parts for all
six positions, as well as a circular
detail to go around the exhaust
hole. I considered having the doors
open, but really the engine and bay
detail don’t warrant showing off
(there is scope for super detailers to
go to town though), so I sanded off
the latches, added some rivet detail
to the doors and glued them inplace. I added the Eduard etch once
the doors were firmly attached (this
also requires that the holes used
to pose the doors open be filled).
It’s a shame the exhausts
don’t exit nearer the centre of
the holes as they should, but that
may just be me. One side was so
far out of position I had to push
it back with a section of sprue;
obviously this wouldn’t be an
issue if you opened the doors.
For the undercarriage I hadbeen supplied with a set of
replacement white metal parts
from Scale Aircraft Conversions
(set number 48327). These are
a straight copy of the kit parts,
with no extra detail, but they are
more robust than the plastic parts
(which can’t be a bad thing).
I fitted the main undercarriage
parts using two-part epoxy and
moved onto Stages 10 and 11, which
fits the front undercarriage, the
doors, and some external details.WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • JUNE 2018 • 25
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