Officially, it was named the
“Sparviero” (Sparrowhawk).
Regarding the S.79 designation;
many people, myself included, use
“SM.79” freely on a casual basis.
The aircraft was of course designed
by Alessandro Marchetti, but his
name was not added to the company
title until 1937, and therefore
aircraft are properly designated
“S.” or “SM.”, depending on the
date of the design, which was 1933
in the case of the Sparviero.THE KITS
This, the most important Italian
aircraft of World War Two, was
bereft of much in the way of plastic
attention for many years, and
even now there is still room for
more in 1/72 scale. At present, the
injection moulded choices remain
only the Airfix kit, first produced
in1967, and that from Italeri in- The Airfix kit is long out of
production, being last produced in
2004, and the Italeri
kit has at times been
unavailable in the UK.
For t u n at e l y, t h e
Airfix kit is still not
too hard to locate
amongst traders
who sell pre-owned kits. If you
don’t have a copy, try to obtain one
from the earlier batches, moulded
in pale blue polystyrene; some of
the later production batches are in
a bigger box, and were produced
in a horrible, grey plastic, which is
brittle and very prone to flaking.WHAT YOU NEED
The Airfix kit is able to produce
an excellent result with a little
work, but it does have more than
a few problems; for example,
14-cylinder two-row engines,
when in fact, 9-cylinder single-
row engines are required. Only
slightly wrong! Its most annoying
weakness, however, is a tendencyfor the main-gear legs to fracture
just above the wheel axles.
The cockpit canopy is also
very thick, but in terms of its
frame lines it is actually better
than the newer Italeri kit! The
engine cowlings are too big and
are simplistically shaped. There is
no attempt to replicate the fabric
covering of the rear fuselage and
control surfaces. Airfix have done
nothing more than to represent
the positions of the attachments
of the fabric using raised “panel”
lines; I decided to do no more than
to give these an ultra-light sanding
to change their profile slightly
from half-round to flat-batten.
The front fuselage of the actual
aircraft was skinned in metal; Airfixhave again used raised lines for
this panel detail, but the modeller
can easily rescribe this small
area. The wings were of timber
construction, and here Airfix have
really overdone it; the wings are
covered in stacks of raised lines –
not a suitable representation for
an aircraft skinned in plywood,
which has been bonded and
sanded smooth. Here we can be
grateful for the raised lines, as
they are much easier to eradicate.
One authoritative source
records that the wing had a final
covering of fabric, although parts
of the wing undersurface were
apparently not so covered. The kit’s
control surfaces are quite good,
with separate elevators and rudder.“THE SAVOIA MARCHETTI S.79 WAS
ONE OF SEVERAL LARGE THREE-
ENGINE BOMBERS DESIGNED BY THE
ITALIANS DURING THE 1930S”
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