Scale Aviation Modeller International – April 2019

involve 29 individual parts,

although unfortunately,

quite a bit of this detail will

be hidden from view when

installed. With clever surgery,

the cowl side panels could be

opened up, but really, etched

replacement panels and some

signiicant scratch building

would be needed to make it

look reasonable. Nevertheless,

I painted the engine parts with

various shades of Vallejo metal

colour acrylic and the engine

mounts and irewall Mr Hobby

H70 to represent RLM 02.

The fuselage closes up

around the engine assembly

without any fuss, although

Eduard’s habit of not including

large location pins, and the

thin section of the mating faces

means that some care is needed

to optimise the alignment

and so minimise sanding.

The cockpit sub-assembly is

inserted into the fuselage from

below, and the instrument

panel and coaming is itted

at this point. The instrument

panel itself is Eduard’s typical

etched sandwich which

I assembled using white

glue to give time for proper

alignment and to give some

shine to the instrument faces.

Interestingly, the kit features

a full plastic instrument panel

and corresponding decal,

and a plastic one pierced for

the instrument faces (but no

backing ilm which might

have been expected). Wing

construction is conventional,

with two upper halves being

added to the one-piece lower.

There are no out-of-the-box

options for separate ailerons

but being somewhat inspired

by the prospect of separate

elevators, I decided to cut the

leading-edge slats free and

pose them open, as usually seen

on parked aircraft. After gluing

the wing upper and lower

halves together, and cleaning

up the leading-edge joint, the

slats can be separated from the

wing using careful application

of razor saw, scriber and sharp

scalpel. I illed in the resulting

gap in the wing with plastic

card and thinned the back edge

of the freed slat by scraping. I

made some mounts from plastic

strip, but the slats were left

of until after painting. Before

itting the wing and tail, the

canopy can be masked, itted

with the internal etched detail

of the latches and handles, and

with some trimming, itted to

the fuselage aperture. The size

and lexibility of the canopy

means that its best to glue it a

section at a time, making sure

of alignment as you go. Fit is

Ok, but patience is deinitely

needed. The assembled wing

The cockpit components before final assembly

The cockpit builds up

neatly and looks the part

Engine detail is moderate, but apart

from a view of the inner part of the

cylinders, is largely hidden when

installed

Both engine and

completed cockpit can be

added from below to the

closed up fuselage

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