THE AEROCLUB
MB.339Aeroclub’s fuselage pressings
in white styrene sheet are
nicely inished with restrained
indented panel lining, but apart
from the large air conditioning
intake in the right-side front
fuselage, little attempt has been
made to replicate the MB.339’s
dorsal grilles, inlets and outlets
(the Italeri kit is only a bit
better). It must also be said that
some of the fuselage paneling
does not match up across both
fuselage shells. As well as the
fuselage, the vac-form parts
also include a one-piece cockpit
tub, a rear cockpit bulkhead
and an instrument coaming for
the second crew member, the
coaming for the front cockpit
being integral with the fuselage.
The fuselage halves clean up
quickly using an abrasive board
or sanding blocks, and then
the cockpit and jet pipe waste
areas can be cut out, together
with the location slots for the
wings and tail planes. There
is no actual jet pipe in the kit,
but its best to install one now
from my ‘spares-box’; a tubular
section from a discarded drop
tank will do ine, also paint
the inside of the rear fuselage
black. I added my jet pipe after
fuselage assembly, inding
that it was possible, using card
strips, to bridge across the
tail plane location tabs that
were protruding into the void,
and then attach my jet pipe to
those. NB, the end of the jet pipe
does not protrude beyond the
edge of the rearmost fuselage
decking. Final preparation
was to add some alternate left
side and right-side location/
reinforcement tabs across the
mating edges of the fuselage
halves. The vac-form bathtub
moulding does not give
crisp edges to the pilots’ side
consoles, but I decided that
this wouldn’t be an issue with
the canopy down (or maybe
I would later face them over
with stock plasticard). I ittedthe rear bulkhead into one
of the fuselage halves and
placed the trimmed bathtub
inside. The fuselage came
together very nicely, but
a little iller was required
during clean-up, chiely the
fuselage decking behind the
rear cockpit. A drilled hole for
the nosewheel leg completed
the basic fuselage work.
The short-run wings,
moulded in light grey, ofer
some nicely thin trailing edges,
and despite being largely solidmouldings there are no sink
marks. The only hollow areas
are the engine intakes, once
the lower intake halves have
been added that is, after which
I found it necessary to carefully
ream-out the air intake lips to
obtain a thinner appearance.
The wings display some
wonderfully thin wing fences,
especially given the nature of
short-run, but the incised panel
lining is so ine that it required
a few minutes of emphasis with
my Olfa-P-Cutter. Underneath,
Aeroclub have overlooked the
fact that the main undercarriage
doors usually return to a closed
position after gear extension,
so I made a pair of doors from
stock card and glued them
into place. The wings and
tail planes assembled
nicely into their respective
slots, but again a little iller
into the root areas, especially
underneath, was required to
tidy up. The tail in was last,
and here a little more work with
iller was required to fair the
base of the in into the top of
the vac-form fuselage. The last
task I undertook, just before
the point at which I decided to
start cross-kitting, was to add
the early-style oval-section
wingtip tanks. The Aeroclub
decal sheet represents an
MB.339A with decals for 61-40, a
trainer with 61 Stormo, AM, and
there’s an alternative serving
with the Argentine Navy.THE ITALERI MB.339A- KIT NO. ART.1354
The Italeri kit is a development
of the old Supermodel MB.326,
and there have been several
diferent boxings under both
labels, and of both aircraft, over
the years, but kit no. 1354 was
still available as new last time I
Including a couple of prototypes and the
Aeronautica Militare (AM) MB.339PAN
display aircraft, a total of 193 MB.339A-
series aircraft were builtSCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL • APRIL 20191/72
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