ProModeler 1/32 Bf 109G-4/R6 "Regia Aeronautica"
By Matt McDougall
I started this one back in late July out of nothing more than a desire to have a Hasegawa 109 fresh in my mind when tackling Revell's new tooling. I'm glad I did - what essentially turned into a double-build revealed the strengths and weaknesses of both kits. The Revell is good...far better in certain respects...but definitely worse in others (gear struts, canopy fit, some WTF engineering choices that lead to unnecessary headaches). Ultimately, I'll probably build both again, but my next 109 is going to be a Trumpeter. I haven't built one yet, but I like the way it's engineered far better than these two, accuracy issues aside.
Anyway, the ProModeler. It represents W.Nr. 19426 serving with the Regia Aeronautica's 364 Squadriglia, 150 Gruppo Autonomo, based at Sciacca in June 1943. Like many Italian 109s, the one had the German insignias oversprayed with Grigio Azzurro Chiaro. This one went a step further with some dark green mottling atop the Italian light blue gray.
- Paints were Gunze and Tamiya, with a dash of Vallejo and Alclad;
- Aftermarket included Eduard's interior PE, Quickboost exhausts, gunsight, gondola gun barrels and control stick, Eagle Editions spinner, and North Star's beautiful late-F/early-G wheels. Oh, and Eduard/HGW microtextile belts;
- Markings are from the Chris Busbridge decal set, which ultimately proved thick and difficult to "vanish" into the surface. Too bad.
© Matt McDougall 2013
This article was published on Tuesday, September 17 2013; Last modified on Tuesday, September 17 2013