This
kit is the old Heller mould, which was reissued last year. No improvements were
observed on the mould, but anyhow, this kit has a fair amount of details,
and it is a good start for detailers. There is a photoetched fret from Eduard
which is very well detailed and can be used by those who want more details.
The
kit comes with two options for markings, one Polish and one Romanian.
Unfortunately, the Romanian markings are not accurate, and must be
replaced with something else.
As
usual, construction started with the interior, with the pilot and gunner seats. The
interior structure of the interior walls is well represented on the halves
of the fuselage, and also there are some other details in interior such rudder
stick, dash board, pilot seat. Next I went to canopy masking and painting.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Closing the fuselage halves and
attaching the wings come very easy, without any
problems. The small spaces that appeared were filled with superglue and sanded.
Some fit problems were observed at the attachment of the canopy and the
transparent pieces from the underside gondolla.
Also,
some attention must be given to the pieces of the engine cowlings. On one
piece there is a gap that can be interpreted as a mistake in the mould. That gap
must not be corrected and filled. It represents ejection chutes of the
bullets which come from the machinegun which is on that side of the plane.
For
painting, I used RLM 65 for the undersides and Rev 67 for upperside. This color
seems to me the most appropriate for what was used at that time.
The
result is a very nice kit, for a plane used quite extensive by Romanian
Airforces.
Andrei
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