MSRP: $23.00 USD
It can honestly be stated that the Hs 123 was the first of
the Stukas. The prototype first flew on May 8,1935 by none other
than Ernst Udet. It was first used in combat during the Spanish
Civil War and later on the Eastern front until there were none left.
When I was first offered the opportunity to review this kit
my first thought was that it must be a new , modern molding. But as
soon as I opened the box I could see the old Esci kit from the late
seventies. The kit has several problem areas but after considerable
effort I believe it turned into a very presentable model.
Construction begins in the cockpit which is of course pretty sparse; a
floor, a seat, control column, rear bulkhead, side panels, and instrument
panel. This goes together well enough and fits into the fuselage
halves without any grief. While the fuselage is drying and
ignoring the instructions, my next step was to assemble the upper and
lower wings to test the fit. Surprisingly, the fit was pretty good
with just minor seam filling and sanding, at the point where the lower
wing meets the fuselage.
Fitting the stabilizers proved to be a challenge because of the struts
underneath. I glued the stabilizers into the slots and placed the
struts in place without glue to be sure of the alignment. After the
glue dried, I set the struts aside till later. It was necessary to
putty the open seams on the stabilizers.
Now that the fuselage had dried the next step was to glue the upper gun
deck in front of the cockpit and fill in the open seams. At this
point you have to consider how you are going to handle assembling the
wing to fuselage struts. These struts are very fragile so I chose to glue
them to the bottom of the upper wing and then strengthen the joint with
super glue. Then I gently spread the struts enough to slip the
tongues into the slots in the side of the upper fuselage. I carefully
slipped the main struts into place and glued only the bottom joint.
This is because these struts are at a severe angle and I wanted to get
them lined up correctly. When I was sure of the position and angle I
applied a little super glue to the strut joint on the lower wing for more
strength . After the struts had dried, I carefully spread the upper
struts and removed the upper wing. This made masking and painting
easier and safer.
Now comes the worst part of this kit, the cowling. The cowling is
split front to back so the bulges could be molded. The engine goes
together well enough but the instructions were not clear about how to
place it into which cowling part, front or rear. There is nothing in
either the front or rear cowlings to line up the engine so I messed up and
got it about 15 degrees off center. This caused the opening for the
machine guns to be out of alignment. I cut the mounting block off,
drilled a hole in the middle of the bulkhead and in the middle of the back
of the engine, and super glued a hooked brass rod into the bulkhead.
Then with a good amount of super glue, I glued the engine to the front of
the model. After the two cowling parts had dried I began to file and
sand around the bulges. Only three had lined up properly so there
was a lot of sanding. It was necessary to use a fair amount of
Tamiya putty (my putty of choice) to close up the joint of the landing
gear to the wing. And then more sanding.
I chose to paint the model in a 1940 scheme RLM 61,(Dark Brown)
62,(Green) 63,(Light Grey) and 65(Light Blue). It took a lot of
careful masking but everything came out OK.
I wouldn’t recommend this kit for the novice or light hearted modeler
but if you want an unusual Luftwaffe aircraft for your collection, this
will have to do until somebody comes along with something better.
The Italeri kit No 2632, Henschel Hs 123 A1, was provided to the
IPMS/USA Reviewer Corps by the Testors Corp. |