MSRP: $32.50
Since the late 1980s Hasegawa has had a Bf-109E in its catalog. They
rebox it with new decals, conversion parts, special armament and other
"upgrades". Is this a bad thing? Not in my book. Opening this
kit was like visiting an old friend who had learned some tricks.
So what do you get in the kit? You get three large light grey sprues
of flash free plastic. Who would have ever guessed that after all these
years? The surface detail is beautiful with very thin panel lines. You
are given a fret of steel photo etch and two styles of Emil canopies,
both early and late.
What makes this one different than any other Hasegawa
109E? You are treated to a clear resin Peil G IV direction finder for
under the fuselage.
As far as I know this is the first time this component has been available
to the modeler short of scratch building it. This opens up some other
aircraft to build as well as the two depicted on the decal sheet. You
can either build the all black night fighter from NJG1 or Hptm Ihlfeld's
colorful aircraft from LG2. This aircraft features yellow control surfaces.
These are actually given to you on the decal sheet. I would probably
paint them if I was going to build this machine. The decals themselves
are very nicely printed. While they look thick on the sheet they actually
fit quite well and are thin.
For those of you who have built a Hasegawa Emil there is nothing new
to tell you. The fit is excellent with no real need for filler anywhere.
The cockpit is adequate right out of the box but I elected to use the
Cutting Edge cockpit (set CEC48379). This little set is the best 109E
cockpit on the market as far as I'm concerned. It fits just as well
as the kit offering and looks better, especially the seat with molded
in seatbelts, laminated instrument panel and oxygen regulator. The cockpit
was painted RLM 02 and given a wash of burnt umber artist oils. Silver
pencil and some dry brushing brings this beautiful cockpit to life.
As I said before assembling the fuselage is as good as you are going
to find. You have to decide if you are going to put the splitter plate
in the intake or not. Not all 109Es have them and the all black one
I was building did not so it was left out. The cockpit can be installed
from the bottom after the fuselage halves are joined.
The wings are an effortless assembly. Five pieces make up the wings.
Two radiator deflectors and the three piece main wing assembly. You
have the choice of having the slats and flaps drooped or up tight. I
elected to drop the slats and leave the flaps up.
Offering the wings to the fuselage posed no real problems. I did have
to fill the aft join with a little putty but this is the only place.
Don't forget to install the engine cannon as it is the mount for the
prop hub. I forgot it and had to 'work' something out. Of course that
also meant I forgot to add the cowl guns before assembling the upper
cowl to the fuselage. I guess you should at least look at the instructions.
The horizontal control surfaces were added and again no filler. The
support struts were left off until after painting. I masked the canopy
with Tamiya tape and attached them for painting. Add the engine intake
and it was time to paint. God that was fast. Have I mentioned that I
love this kit?
Wash the model in Dawn dish detergent and apply Polly-S Plastic Prep
to the surface and it was time to prime. I used Tamiya spray primer
white. Not surprisingly I found no place that needed touch up.
I elected to paint this model the all black night fighter just because
it was different. Let's see it should be…. black. I had some Polly-S
RLM 22 black that I used to spray over the entire model. Wow, that was
painless! The wheel wells and slat area were given a coat of RLM 02
for color as I could not determine if they shouldn't be. A coat of Alclad
Gloss Base and it was time to decal.
Using Mr. Mark Softner to apply the decals proved to be no problem.
Even though the decals look thick on the sheet they proved to be perfect
with the Mr. Mark Softner. I used the kit decals throughout with the
following exceptions. Using Lynn Ritger's Modeler Datagaph Vol 1 on
the early 109s as a reference I agree with Lynn that the code markings
should not be grey but a rust red. I had a friend scan in the decals
and produce some red letters. I first put the grey ones down and then
after they had dried I put the red over them. I was quite happy with
the look. You may think otherwise and stick with the grey markings,
your call. The only other thing I differed from the kit instructions
is the top wing markings. The markings provided in the kit are speculative
as there are no photos showing the upper wing crosses on these black
109s. I think that they would have been the same style as in use on
normal fighters of the day without the black. This would make them the
normal late war style of crosses. I used some Aeromaster decals for
the upper wing crosses. Again you may think differently and like the
large crosses. Your choice and right now no one can prove you or me wrong.
Once the decals were dry a coat of Alclad gloss base and when dry a
Model Master Acrylic Flat sealed everything.
I was hoping that the weathering would set this model off, however,
the photos in the Modeler Datagraph showed very little weathering. Paint
chipping was kept to a minimum. Some exhaust stains were added but they
were pretty invisible. I did use Mig Pigments for some dust and dirt
on the bottom of the wings and on the wheels. Gunze Oil was used to
stain the bottom a little but again it seemed to disappear. Another
coat of flat and it was almost done.
Remove the masks from the canopy and attach them and the small pieces,
like the mass weights, pitot tube, antenna mast and antenna. You need
to add the Peil IV antenna. It required just a quick clean up with a
sanding stick and was attached to the bottom of the model with white
glue. A little clear green and red mixed with some white glue and added
to the appropriate wing tip and it was done.
Conclusions
This release is a great kit with a lot of options. The availability
of the Peil IV antenna is a nice addition. I will pick up another one
and do a desert aircraft that had this antenna. It is nice that you
get both canopies. Is it worth the money? I thought so. I certainly
had a lot of fun building it. Are there downsides? Yes, there is no
engine making the cooling vents on top and bottom of the engine see
through, as well as, the radiators under the nose and in the wings.
Are these big detractors to you? You have to decide. It wasn't a big
deal to me. The cockpit was okay but I did substitute the Cutting Edge
cockpit. As I stated earlier this is the best looking cockpit for the
Bf-109E available anywhere and I highly recommend it. With those things
said, I still think it is a wonderful kit with a great fit and some
impressive options.
Highly recommended.
References:
The Messerschmitt Bf-109 Part 1: Modellers Datafile No.9, Lynn Ritger,
SAM Publications, ISBN 0-9551858-0-7
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