Pfalz D.IIIa
Eduard 1/48 Weekend Edition Pfalz D.IIIa by Nic Aronica
MANUFACTURER: Eduard
SCALE: 1/48
KIT NO: 8417
PARTS: 47T
he Pfalz D.IIIa was one
of the many German
WW1 scouts powered
by Mercedes Benz engines,
but was overshadowed by its
contemporaries in the Albatros
family. It enjoyed limited success
with several Jastas and, just like
all other German aircraft of this
period, was gaily painted. Though
flown by several aces the aircraft
was not an ace-maker itself.THE KIT
This kit of the Eduard Pfalz D.IIIa is
a typical weekend edition, coming
with two decal options: Option A is
the Jasta 21 and Option B is Jasta 77.
I have chosen the latter because it
is more colourful. The kit comes in
a top opening box, inside of which
are two blue sprues, an instruction
booklet, and a very nice decal sheet
with the two options explained
above. The plastic is lovely and
crisp, but very basic for 1/48 scale.BUILDING THE KIT
As usual, this process begins with
the cockpit. I assembled the various
cockpit parts, then sprayed the
interior with a light brown (Gunze
H37), and painted all the smaller
parts the appropriate colour, i.e.
black for the joystick and redbrown (H47) for the seat. I then
added the decal harnesses to the
seat and started on the engine.
This was very simple with
only five parts. It’s painted in
three colours: light silver for
the crankcase, dark iron for the
cylinders, and brass for the other
small parts. I added one half of
this to the fuselage and joined
the two halves together. They
did not need clamping, as both
halves fit snugly to each other.
Whilst waiting for that to dry,
I began to prepare the other parts:
the undercarriage, machine guns,and various struts, all of which are
painted in dull aluminium. The
tailskid and propeller are painted
wood brown. At this point, I cleaned
up the fuselage joint lines and
rubbed them smooth, which is
the only bit of rubbing down that
is needed on the whole model.The next job was the upper
and lower wings of the aircraft.
The instruction booklet advises
cutting off the tips of the lower54 • JULY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
KIT REVIEWS
054-61-Reviews-0718.indd 54 11/06/2018 13:58