Scale Aviation Modeller International – April 2019

in Scale Aviation Modeller
International magazine July

1999. These revealed a host
      of accuracy problems; the
      wingspan of both kits is too
      little, the Italeri tanks are too
      small and badly shaped, and
      they attach to the wings too
      far to the rear. Moreover, by
      ditching the Italeri tanks I
      would also lose the illets that
      mark the joints between the
      wingtips and tanks. How on
      earth had I not noticed all this
      before? I was now faced with
      some work! I began by truing-
      up the Aeroclub wingtips for
      a third time. I next added a
      thick card strip, 3mm wide was
      required in my case, to each
      wing tip and when thoroughly
      dry, trimmed and rubbed it
      down to match the contours
      of the wing. Next in line were
      the tank illets, and using the
      wingtips as templates, I ran a
      pencil all around the wingtips
      onto 10-thou card, two-of
      for each side. The resulting
      narrow ovals were then roughly
      shaped so as to inish all around
      slightly proud of the wingtips.
      They were next beveled to
      simulate the angle of the illet.
      They were then assembled to
      the wingtips, inally shaped and
      slightly dished, using a round
      ile, to accept the curvature
      of the replacement tanks. The
      plain wingspan should be
      142mm, including both illets.
      As to replacement round-
      section wing tanks, I ind that
      discarded torpedoes frequently
      furnish excellent parallel-sided
      wing stores. This time I went
      for a pair from some Italeri
      SM.79 kits, which needed a
      reshape at nose and tail, and a
      slice-out of the centre section,
      so as to inish up with tanks
      of 54-mm in length, 6.6mm in

diameter. At irst this diameter

looked a little oversized,

but this matches Richard

Caruana’s plans exactly. They

are certainly signiicantly

diferent than the Italeri items.

These were inished of the

model and added only at inal

assembly. The tanks usually

carry a Day-Glo middle section,

but the bright paint does not

extend onto the illets; adding

the painted tanks only at the

very end was an easy way to get

nice crisp colour demarcations

between tanks and illets.

Each wing sports a couple of

mini fences at the leading edge

near the tips. There were not

present in the original design

of the 339A and were irst

introduced on the aerobatic

team MB.339PAN aircraft, as

a substitute for the ‘fencing’

efect of tip tanks, which were

not used by PAN aircraft. All

or most MB.339A machines

seem subsequently to have

been itted with these, possibly

because of the move away

from the earlier oval section

slab-sided tanks. Wing fences

parts 45A from the Italeri kit

were used, but with their jaws

slightly squeezed together to

it the Aeroclub wing. Beneath

the right-side wing is a lush

itted landing light, located

roughly inside the knee of the

main and secondary gear door

locations. Italeri have a lens

transparency for this one, and

so using a carpentry-sized

drill bit, I drilled out a shallow

hole in the solid Aeroclub

wing, illed it with bright

silver paint and then ixed the

lens using Johnson’s ‘Klear’

and then superglue. There is

a further landing light at the

head of the nosewheel leg.

FUSELAGE DETAILS

I inished the fuselage exterior

throughout using Italeri

detail parts. First up was the

ventral airbrake which was too

good to ignore. Here I iled a

shallow recess in the belly of

the fuselage and stopped once

I could see that the plastic had

got so thin that I could see

one of the reinforcement tabs

ghosting through. Italeri’s

airbrake hinges were far too

small and were replaced.

Italeri’s ventral ins were also

used, but a irst attempt threw

up that the recesses for them in

Aeroclub’s rear fuselage were

not symmetrically placed. I

illed one side and butt itted

the in on that side. A triangular

tail bumper also had to be cut

and itted. The ILS antennae,

Italeri parts 23A, were added

to the in near the head of

the rudder. Some MB.339A,

possibly all eventually, have

the ILS antennae itted lower

down the in, something that

was kicked of by CD aircraft.

At the head of the in I iled a

recess to accept a short length

Having already pre-shaded, I

finished the weathering with thin

washes into the panel lines

SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL • APRIL 2019

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