Italeri

1/48 CR.42 AS Falco

Kit Number: 2653

Reviewed by  Chad Richmond, IPMS# 10346

MSRP: $44.95 Italeri's second release of the CR.42 Falco is of the AS version, which was the Italians' ground attack and night operations aircraft. The aircraft saw service with not only the Italians and Germans, but with Belgium, Sweden and Hungary as well. Very few examples, however, survived the war. Italeri's first release of the Falco was the LW version, and the only difference in the kit itself is the small sprue extension to tree A. Instead of half-spatted landing gear and night exhausts, the sprue contains the parts for two bombs and a landing gear with no spats. Other than that the parts are identical. Markings are provided for four aircraft; Ravenna, April, 1942, two different aircraft from North Africa, October, 1942, and one from Libya, August, 1942. I chose the last one.

One significant difference between this kit and the LW is the inclusion of a very nicely done, pocket-sized, reference book on the CR.42. It is fairly obvious that the book and its contents were not used in the design of the kit, unfortunately. The book does give some very good color photos of a CR.42, but not of an AS. There are also several construction blow-ups of the aircraft's superstructure. The reference book contains some really good photos of the aircraft interior, but the layout in the kit and the instructions are different. The painting instructions are also different from the cockpit pictures, also. You can make a fairly good interior, however. You are offered decals and flat pieces for the instrument and right side panel, or panels with raised detail. You still need some type of instrument decals, however, as there is no instrument detail on the raised surfaces. There is a seat belt decal that vaguely represents a seat belt, but I substituted a RAF style seat belt and shoulder harness decal from Monogram, which looked nice. The two side walls are fairly accurate, and when the tub is all assembled, it fits nicely between the fuselage halves. Unfortunately, it virtually disappears! The fuselage halves went together okay, with a little manipulating, but the end alignment of everything was good. The plastic in the kit is a very soft, light gray, which is easy to sand or trim. The molding was more akin to a limited issue kit than a mass production kit, but the fit throughout was fairly good. The worst fit problems were with the engine, which can be made into a really nice assembly. The front and rear cylinder banks are molded separately, as are the push rods for each bank. The front pushrods are molded with the front case, as well. It is nicely represented. The mold lines on the cylinders are fairly easy to clean up, so that is not a great problem. However, none of the push rods are long enough to reach the rocker arms. And the rocker arms all seem to be different in thickness, which means that each pushrod has to be extended. I had to add anywhere from .010 to .030 to the rods to get them to meet. Once assembled and painted, the engine looked pretty good, though. The engine cowling comes in four pieces. Parts 29A and 30A can be cut so you can display the engine. I opted not to do that. The two parts also have slots in them that are supposed to line up with three of the rocker arms that are used as attachment points, but I could not get them to line up, so I made my own slots, which worked out okay. The painting instructions for the engine are, once again, totally different than the pictures in the reference book. The exhaust pipes curiously are molded in one piece that you have to cut in the middle. I couldn't get either one to fit very well, but finally got them in place later on in the construction process. The fabric detail on both the wings and the fuselage are greatly exaggerated, and need to be dealt with, in some manner, in order to not detract from the final model. I used a combination of sanding sticks, sheet sanding paper and steel wool to tone down the cast ridges that simulated the formers. I still didn't like what I had, but realized if I sanded any more, I was going to make situation worse. I didn't thin down any of the trailing edges, though they could use quite a bit. With the softness of the plastic, I was really afraid to, as my primary modeling adhesive is Tamiya thin liquid or Tenax. Both melt this plastic very well! I was afraid my trailing edges might take on yet another personality. Seams also took a longer time to dry that I am used to. The upper and lower wings went together fairly well, but the lower wings were just slightly thicker at the root than the wing root. The slots for the tabs are a little bit larger than the tabs, so you have to do a little wiggling to get them right. I tacked mine with superglue, then sealed the joint with epoxy. I was able to save the join line that way. The tail planes are much the same situation and were attached in the same manner. Once I had the upper wing done and the lower wings and tail planes installed, I then did some modular painting. I used Model Master 30219, 34092 and 36662, even though the kit instruction sheet showed something else. I asked Phil Hale what he recommended, and these were what he suggested. When I painted all of the wing struts, I laid them down on a piece of tape and wrote down their numbers, so I wouldn't get them mixed up. Fortunately, there are only four pieces of rigging in this aircraft, but they are on the struts themselves, not the wing. After a few minutes I finally managed to get an appropriate hole drilled in each one. Once the cowling pieces and the engine were all assembled, I glued them in place. This is where you add those finicky exhausts. You have to wait until the aft cowl ring is in place to insert them. What a bear! All of my great burnt metal paint also disappeared under a misting of gray. I also installed the oil cooler/filter fairing at this time. The front portion of the filter is supposed to touch the bottom of the cowling, but mine is just barely off the cowling. Some dry fitting and a little bit of .005 Evergreen would have helped, but the bumps on the cowling prevent it from making contact. So, maybe I wasn't totally wrong. While the model was still in components, I sprayed it with about four coats of Tamiya clear. I normally use Tamiya or Gunze paints, so I wasn't quite ready for the way the Model Master soaked up my clear. Once satisfied the surface was smooth enough, I started putting on the decals. These are the standard Italeri decal that has a whitish cast to it that love to silver. I used Model Masters decal solutions, but they just didn't want to lay down in some places. I got out the Solvaset and sparingly applied it. The decals didn't like the Solvaset, but eventually gave in. Don't use a lot at one time; use it sparingly in multiple applications. The last task was gluing the upper wing in place. Having built numerous WWI aircraft over the years, I wasn't dreading this process, but once I got in to it, I changed my mind. There are a total of ten struts that secure the upper wing to the fuselage and upper wing, and out of the twelve, there were only about two that were long enough and were at the right taper and airfoil. The mounting holes in the upper and lower wing, as well as the fuselage were great, but the stubs on the struts were extremely lacking. It was at this point that any thoughts of having a really great presentation model went out the window. Numerous applications of superglue and white glue to try to close some of the gaps and do some fairing in of the struts. There wasn't a whole lot I could do in some of the cases, so I basically gave up. Lastly, I added invisible thread for the rigging wires on the outer struts. The completed model looks right, but it's a tough road to get it to that point. It is not for the beginning modeler. Thanks to Italeri for the review kit.

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