Hasegawa 1/32 scale Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6

By Jerry Crandall

Overall this was very easy and fun to build. I built these two models in a total of 65 hours and of course I cut corners (please don't look into the cockpit!) as the primary purpose was to put them together, paint them and try out some of our new decals which worked out beautifully.

Some of the high points, I feel, include:

  1. The overall fit is excellent
  2. The clever way it was engineered with the spar piece fitting into the belly pan of the fuselage allowed for the separate wings to be slipped on and glued in place without any guesswork. This way the dihedral is automatically preset.
  3. The landing gear leg attachment is similar to the real aircraft and is rugged and lines up automatically to the correct angles.
  4. The horizontal tail has the left and right molded onto the interlocking tabs so when these are attached they slip together and lock into place and again, are lined up automatically.

Some areas that I think could be improved, and probably will be through aftermarket products:

  1. The tail wheel and yoke are molded in two halves and have to be glued together and does not correctly represent the yoke. It would be nice to have the yoke and the wheel/tire separate.
  2. The rear fuselage and tail assembly can be a problem when gluing it to the main part of the fuselage. If you are not real careful, you can end up with an unsightly step, especially left to right.
  3. The canopy is beautifully molded and crystal clear but I found, even after dry fitting, when I glued the three piece canopy to the fuselage, with the center section closed, it didn't fit very well. I had to remove some plastic from the center section.
  4. When attaching the short antenna mast to the rear portion of the canopy, it has a tendency for the mast to be slanted too far forward.

Overall, it is a lot of fun to build and taking the time to do it properly, can result in a very fine, accurate looking Bf 109G-6.

Notes about the markings and camouflage of the two aircraft that I built:

"Red 8/Black 8"

This very interesting aircraft was flown by 2./JG 302 in February 1944 at Helsinki Finland as a night fighter protecting this area from Russian bombers. Other 2. Staffel aircraft were known to have Red numbers but in the photo of this aircraft the number appears that it could be Black. I decided to use the Red as an alternate as out profile on the decal sheet is depicted as Black, both are included on the decal sheet.

The overall camouflage appears to be very dark and the White nose band and rudder have been muted, both for night fighter duty. The canopy framework was factory painted in RLM 66 Dark Gray. The rare JG 302 "Wilde Sau" emblem is on both sides of the cowling, and depicts a Red devil riding a wild boar.

"White 7" 4./JG 51

This is the well-known aircraft flown by Elias Kuhlein depicted here in its earlier version with all-Yellow spinner, Yellow rumpf band and Yellow wing tips, as it was flown in May 1944 based on unpublished photos. The version in our decal sheet based on published photos depicts this a/c as it was in June 1944 in Bulgaria with the sectioned spinner, Yellow wing tips and rumpf band over painted. Since the overall a/c was faded and worn, I over sprayed the completed model with a misting of light Gray to reduce the contrast of the camouflage and markings.

© Jerry Crandall

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This article was published on Wednesday, July 20 2011; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016